Jfie 

J  Oreon's 

Bride 


LANTERN  STORIES 


Photographed  by  the  author 

WHERE  FLOWS  THE  MING 


THE  RIVER 
DRAGON'S  BRIDE 


By 
LENA  LEONARD  FISHER 

BEING  SOME  STORY  BEADS  GATHERED  IN  SOUTH 
CHINA  AND  STRUNG  ON  A  THREAD  OF  MEMORY 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1922,  by 
LENA  LEONARD  FISHER 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO  THE  DEAR  TWO, 

MY  DAUGHTER  AND  HER  FATHER 

WHO  WITH  ME  WALKED 

CHINESE  WAYS 


2136274 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    Where  Flows  the  Ming 1 1 

II.    A  Chinese  Handy  Andy 26 

III.  The  Blight  of  Beelzebub 43 

IV.  A  House  of  Understanding 60 

V.    The  Sign  of  the  Cross 73 

VI.    The  Loosened  Grip 84 

VII.     The  Bandit  Trail 97 

VIII.    The  River  Dragon's  Bride 124 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
Where  Flows  the  Ming Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

The  Bridge  of  Ten  Thousand  Ages 12 

The  Tombs  of  Their  Ancestors  (A  Mandarin 

Grave) 36 

"A  Thousand  Gold"  to  a  Chinese  Mother 66 

The  Oldest  Methodist  Church  in  Asia,  at 

Foochow 78 

The  Struggling  Bit  of  Femininity  on  the  Shore  104 
"The  Feathery  Fronds  of  the  Tall  Bamboos" . .  108 
The  Bridal  Chair 140 


WHERE  FLOWS  THE  MING 

[T  is  a  perfectly  Oriental  proposition 
that  when  I  essay  to  string  upon  a 
golden  thread  of  memory  some 
stories,  lived  out  before  my  eyes, 
or  told  to  my  eager  ears  in  strange,  out-of- 
the-world  places  by  others  who  had  seen 
their  slow  unfolding;  it  is  entirely  Oriental, 
I  repeat,  that  the  first  bead  to  slip  down  the 
shining  cord  should  reflect  in  its  ancient 
carving  the  face  of  a  man.  If  such  be  the 
inevitable,  I  make  my  politeness  to  the  spirit 
of  the  Orient  which  drives  my  pen,  and 
meekly  submit.  The  "Orient,"  being  in- 
terpreted, is  "Man's  Land."  History,  law, 
tradition,  and  custom  all  combine  to  em- 
phasize the  designation.  Why  not,  then,  in 
my  pretty  string  of  beads,  first,  the  story  of 
Handy  Andy? 

I  never  heard  his  Chinese  name,  though 
II 


12        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

doubtless  that  most  honorable  cognomen  was 
borne  by  a  hundred  generations,  or  mayhap 
a  thousand  before  him.  It  was  as  "Handy 
Andy"  that  the  American  Woman  Doctor 
introduced  him  to  me  in  her  crude  little  Hos- 
pital of  the  Good  Shepherd  back  in  the  old 
city  of  Ancestral  Abodes.  This  most  ancient 
and  delectable  city  lies  in  the  very  heart  of 
those  purple  mountains  which  enwrap  the 
path  of  the  Ming  River,  remote  from 
here,  it  seems  to  me  to-day,  a  million  miles. 
The  trail  I  followed,  at  whose  finish  I  found 
the  city,  the  hospital,  and  finally  Handy 
Andy,  is  a  thousand  years  old — it  may  be  ten 
times  that  for  all  I  know.  Was  not  the 
dreamy  old  river  on  whose  tide  our  house 
boat  floated  spanned  by  the  "Bridge  of  Ten 
Thousand  Ages,"  whose  hoary  grayness 
gave  it  every  evidence  of  being  true  to 
name? 

The  incoming  tide  from  the  sea  urged  us 
on  under  its  crumbling  arches  after  a  hasty 
embarkation  from  the  moss-slippery  jetty  of 
a  city  in  southern  China  which  was  old  when 
the  Bridge  of  Ten  Thousand  Ages  was 


CO 

w 

O 


WHERE  FLOWS  THE  MING          13 

brave  and  bright  with  youth.  I  say  a  hasty 
embarkation,  for  though  our  bed  clothes  and 
food  hampers  and  general  travelers'  junk 
had  been  in  readiness  for  all  of  two  days, 
the  little  gray  house  boat,  all  swept  and  gar- 
nished for  our  arrival,  must  condition  her 
going  upon  the  inward  tide  from  the  sea, 
which,  only  a  matter  of  three  hours  below 
where  the  old  city  of  Foochow  waked  and 
slept,  received  the  turbulent  and  muddy  flood 
of  the  most  majestic  Ming.  In  time,  how- 
ever, came  a  runner  sent  to  us  by  our  skipper, 
who  down  at  the  jetty  with  crew  mustered — 
five  men  including  himself  and  his  surly  son 
— had  with  true  nautical  eye  detected  the 
exact  instant  when  the  current  of  the  big 
river  turned  upward.  The  message  was 
brought  by  a  pig-tailed  coolie,  and  was  brief 
and  very  much  to  the  point.  It  was  delivered 
with  ceremonious  politeness  and  was  to  the 
effect  that  "The  tide  is  now  flowing  top-side 
and  the  boat  can  walk.  Would  the  most 
honorable  foreigners  be  good  enough  to  very 
much  hurry?" 

So  "very  much  hurry"  we  did.     Sa-ho, 


14        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

the  cook — may  the  benediction  of  his  honor- 
able ancestors  abide  forever  upon  his  head ! — 
and  Cing-soi  the  houseman — a  gentleman, 
or  there  never  was  one — gravely  directed  the 
baggage  coolies,  and  with  polite  dignity 
steadied  us,  as  we  scrambled  down  the  slimy 
water  stairs.  A  moment  later,  having 
clutched  with  fervor  the  end  of  the  bamboo 
pole  obligingly  held  out  to  us  from  his  perch 
forward  by  the  skipper  of  our  craft  himself, 
we  had  safely  made  the  distance  between 
shore  and  boat  across  the  bobbing  gang- 
plank, and  were  off. 

There  was  no  poling  of  the  boat  to  begin 
with.  The  upward  urge  of  the  sea  tide  was 
all  the  motor  power  we  needed  for  the  first 
leg  of  the  voyage.  Once  safely  through  the 
massive  gray  arches  of  the  two  hoary  bridges 
which  spanned  the  Ming  at  the  city,  the 
winds  came  sweeping  down  from  great  pine- 
scented  heights,  filling  our  white  sails  with 
rushing  life.  My  heart  pounded  with  a  wild 
exultation  as  we  steered  straight  upstream 
toward  the  hidden  recesses  of  those  hazy 
mountains  ahead,  piled  up  range  upon  range 


WHERE  FLOWS  THE  MING          15 

under  the  glistening,  scintillating  rays  of  a 
close-to-tropical  sun  at  noonday.  I  had  em- 
barked upon  that  dream  journey  which  since 
childhood's  day  of  unrestrained  imaginings 
I  had  always  been  quite  sure  I  should  some 
time  pursue.  And  now  the  quest  was  beck- 
oning just  as  I  had  always  known  it  would, 
up  a  mighty  and  all  but  unknown  river,  urged 
on  by  breezes  that  had  swept  across  vast 
fragrant  spaces  into  a  realm  of  happenings 
which  for  me  experience  had  never  before 
visualized. 

I  reflect  upon  no  other  vagabond  who  has 
treked  across  earth's  unfrequented  ways 
when  I  record  here  my  great  wonderment 
that  no  one  of  them  ever  returned  to  impress 
upon  my  consciousness  the  transcendent 
beauties  of  southern  China.  Possibly  the 
task  bulked  too  large  to  be  even  attempted. 
I  am  quite  sure  this  must  be  the  reason,  for 
I  find  my  own  pen  growing  unaccountably 
shy  at  the  first  mental  suggestion  of  trying  to 
splash  upon  paper  with  words  any  concept  of 
the  glories  which  garment  the  path  taken  by 
the  old  Ming  into  the  dusky  purple  silences 


1 6        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

of  those  mysterious  mountain  solitudes  in  far 
Cathay.  Range  upon  range  there  were  of 
shadowy  heights,  with  sky  lines  which  re- 
solved themselves  against  the  gold  of  the 
dying  sun  into  the  lineaments  of  sleeping 
faces. 

Naturally,  in  China  the  mountain  faces 
would  slumber !  For  with  all  the  noisy  con- 
tendings  through  recent  years,  of  us  Occi- 
dentals, that  China  is  finally  and  victoriously 
awake,  facts  would  seem  to  clearly  disprove 
our  blatant  assertions.  Else  why  have  her 
ancestral  lands  been  stolen  from  her,  her  an- 
cient national  pride  humiliated  by  the  for- 
eign aggressor  within  her  gates,  her  liberty 
curtailed,  and  her  weakness  ridiculed? 
China  still  sleeps! 

Occasionally  in  her  dreams  she  has  turned 
over.  Within  recent  moons  her  right  arm, 
strong,  though  benumbed  by  the  pressure 
of  her  body  upon  it  as  she  has  lain  in  her 
age-long  slumber — her  right  arm,  I  say, 
moved  by  some  major  nerve  within  her  heart 
of  hearts,  reached  out  one  day  and  gripped 
the  student  life  of  her  domain.  And  the  stu- 


WHERE  FLOWS  THE  MING          17 

dents  of  all  China,  thrilled  by  that  touch,  re- 
acted in  the  Students'  Strike  with  the  most 
potent,  far-reaching  and  effectual  demon- 
stration against  the  wicked  and  unscrupu- 
lous designs  of  a  certain  envious  foreign 
power  that  ever  emanated  from  the  Middle 
Kingdom.  Would  that  some  lover  of  human 
justice — especially  just  now,  some  lover  of 
human  justice  in  China — might  impress 
upon  the  Chinese  student  body  everywhere 
that  biceps  muscles  toughen  only  with  the 
using ! 

I  distinctly  saw  the  sleeping  countenance 
of  George  Washington  in  the  sun  glow  along 
the  mountain  tops  that  first  night  on  the 
Ming.  Fancy,  though,  the  Father  of  His 
Country  asleep  in  China  to-day!  It  is  the 
spirit  of  Washington,  sleepless,  strong,  virile, 
unconquerable,  which  is  just  now  being  re- 
incarnated in  the  very  fabric  of  the  growing 
body  of  Chinese  students.  When,  on  some 
great  day,  this  spirit  shall  be  clothed  upon 
with  the  garments  of  a  towering  personality 
who  will  blaze  the  trail  to  real,  not  fictitious, 
national  independence  to  be  forever  estab- 


i8        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

lished  in  righteousness  and  justice,  China 
will  forget  her  inaction — her  aeons  of  dream- 
ings — and  all  China's  blue-coated  millions 
will  be  awake. 

Our  boatmen  are  poling  us  now,  for  the 
breeze  is  tired.  That  husky  but  surly  one, 
the  skipper's  son,  is  staying  well  forward  in 
•the  boat's  prow.  With  his  arms  akimbo  he 
is  solemnly  whistling  up  the  wind.  This  is 
no  quotation.  No  such  marks  should  inclose 
that  last  phrase.  It  is  not  a  repetition  of  an 
old  proverb,  neither  is  it  a  joke.  It  is  a  fact. 
The  skipper's  son  is  seriously  endeavoring, 
by  making  a  certain  noise  with  his  mouth, 
to  raise  the  wind. 

The  task  is  obviously  less  arduous  than 
that  of  poling  which  is  absorbing  the  rest 
of  the  crew  to  the  point  of  straining  muscles 
and  sweating  bodies.  From  our  prow  these 
yellow,  half-naked  giants  are  casting  into 
the  channel  their  long  iron-tipped  poles,  and 
with  such  a  leverage  they  are  running  along 
the  very  rim  of  the  boatside  toward  the  stern 
of  our  little  craft,  which  shoots  forward  by 
the  measure  of  her  own  length  upon  her  un- 


WHERE  FLOWS  THE  MING          19 

willing  course  against  the  current.  Still  the 
surly  one  stands  at  his  ease  and  whistles. 

It  occurs  to  me  as  I  watch  them  there  in 
the  gathering  dusk  that  nautical  ethics  on 
Life's  River  seem  quite  like  this!  It's  easy 
enough  to  whistle  to  raise  the  wind — to  make 
a  noise  with  one's  mouth  as  it  were — but 
usually  it's  the  folk  who  pole  who  get  any- 
where. 

The  moon's  disk  is  edging  over  the  moun- 
tain. As  the  silver  segment  widens  to 
emerge  presently  in  full-orbed  glory,  the 
craggy  summits,  reaching  up  and  up  through 
the  blue  to  catch  the  shining  radiance,  are 
mirrored  in  tender  trembling  lines  upon  the 
river's  breast — the  river,  which  like  all  other 
living  vibrant  creation,  seems  to  sleep. 

The  boat  lies  at  anchor.  The  crew,  in- 
cluding him  of  the  noisy  mouth,  have  be- 
stowed themselves  away  in  an  invisible  some- 
where astern,  to  dream  maybe  of  some  de- 
lectable river  where  everybody  whistles  and 
no  one  poles.  ^ 

Overhead  on  a  mountain  steep  of  rock 
huddles  pathetically  in  moonlight  whiteness 


2O        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

the  crumbling  walls  of  a  little  temple,  its 
up-curving  roof  of  tile  splashed  by  the  brush 
of  passing  centuries  with  tones  of  mellow 
brownness.  A  silence  unfathomable,  un- 
thinkable, is  upon  the  face  of  the  world.  The 
mountainsides,  long  stripped  of  the  trees 
which  should  now  be  clothing  their  nudity, 
could  offer  no  shelter  for  even  so  much  as  a 
few  feathered  things  who  might  disturb  the 
stillness  by  murmuring  in  their  dreams.  I 
lay  prone  upon  the  white  deck  of  the  boat 
saturated  in  moonshine,  drugged  by  that  at- 
mosphere of  ultimate  repose  into  almost  com- 
plete cessation  of  action,  either  physical  or 
mental.  I  seemed  an  unreal  atom  in  some 
unreal  sphere.  Had  I  been  a  Brahman,  my 
drowsy  soul  would  probably  have  whispered 
"Nirvana." 

I  am  glad  it  was  no  violent  discordant 
crash  of  sound  that  shattered  the  spell !  Such 
veritable  perfection  of  quiet  must,  of  course, 
needs  come  to  an  end  as  do  all  perfect  things. 
This  silence  did  not  end — it  simply  oozed 
away  upon  the  sound  of  the  song  of  boatmen, 
heard  faintly  at  first,  as  it  was  borne  to  us 


WHERE  FLOWS  THE  MING          21 

from  far  up  the  river  where  the  moonlight 
ceased  to  be  moonlight  and  became  silver 
mist.  It  was  the  old,  old  song,  intoned  by 
China's  people  of  the  rivers  for  a  thousand 
ages,  as  they  cut  with  cumbersome  propellers 
the  spray  of  the  much-traveled  waterways 
which  lead  to  the  sea. 

More  than  once  I  have  luxuriously  lounged 
in  a  gondola  under  a  silver  moon,  with  the 
low  strumming  of  a  guitar  in  my  ears,  while 
snatches  of  song  from  passing  boated  min- 
strels lent  enchantment  to  a  summer  night 
in  Venice.  They  were  beautiful,  those  nights, 
and  I  love  their  memory.  But  since  my 
nights  on  the  Ming — those  perfect  nights — 
the  others  pale  as  do  berouged  ladies  to- 
ward morning  after  a  night  of  dancing  and 
gayety. 

This  song  of  the  boatmen  on  the  Ming  was 
no  ephemeral  roundelay,  no  bit  from  some 
flimsy  music-hall  favorite,  popular  for  a 
passing  moment.  This  was  a  song  woven  out 
of  the  fiber  of  which  Chinese  hearts  have 
been  made  since  the  beginning  of  things 
Chinese,  which  is  very,  very  long  ago.  No 


22        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

words  of  love  or  romance  carried  its  mes- 
sage. Yet  the  meaningless  syllables,  "Hi- 
la,  hai-la,  Hi-la  ho-la,"  chanted  over  and 
over  again  in  that  uncanny  melody  spoke  of 
matters  mysterious  and  profound.  I  sensed 
through  strains  of  that  song  the  story  of  the 
hard  labor  of  men  and  women  as  they 
planted  the  rice,  and  convoyed  it  to  cities 
down  the  river  where  it  would  sustain  the 
physical  life  of  teeming  millions.  There 
crooned  in  its  cadences  the  love  of  men  for 
women.  There  trailed  through  it  the  laugh- 
ter of  children.  There  haunted  it  the  ghost- 
chords  of  departed  ancestors,  whose  impos- 
ing graves  looked  down  from  the  mountain- 
sides, and  whose  spirits  are  more  powerful 
in  death  than  in  life.  There  breathed 
through  it  a  deep  note  of  cruelty,  of  age-old 
custom ;  of  protest  against  the  encroachment 
of  Western  modernism;  of  smoke  of  sacri- 
ficial incense,  of  shadows  cast  by  sacred 
mountains ;  of  the  swish  of  the  muddy  water 
of  the  paddy-field.  All  these  things  I  heard 
that  night  in  the  song  of  the  boatmen,  now 
coming  nearer  and  nearer  through  the  moon- 


WHERE  FLOWS  THE  MING          23 

light  to  our  anchored  craft.  It  was  a  man's 
song,  and  they  sang  it  antiphonally,  the  two 
shifts  of  oarsmen,  in  high-pitched,  minor 
voices,  their  paddles  falling  to  the  strange 
rhythm  in  absolute  unison.  They  came  so 
near  that  as  I  crouched  on  our  deck  I  could 
see  the  water  slip  from  their  flashing  oars 
like  showers  of  silver  beads. 

They  came — they  passed — and  were  gone, 
as  millions  like  them,  for  ever  and  a  day,  had 
come  down  the  old  river,  had  passed  and 
were  gone.  One  lone  cadence  of  that  weirdly 
magic  music  to  this  day  sings  itself  over  and 
over  within  my  consciousness,  though  my 
voice  utters  it  not  often.  Here  are  the  notes 
as  they  came  to  me  across  the  water,  but  do 
not  try  to  sing  them.  The  strain  is  but  the 
wraith  of  the  song,  and  besides,  no  one  could 
sing  it  but  the  boatmen  on  the  old,  old  Ming, 
rowing  in  the  moonlight  down  to  the  sea. 


Hi    -la        hai    -    la,         Hi    -    la         ho   -    la  - 

Spring  had  come  trailing  across  the  moun- 
tains of  southern  China,  just  before  we,  dis- 


24        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

embarking  from  our  house  boat  at  that  place 
in  the  river  where  riotous  rapids  halt  the  up- 
stream pilgrim,  began  the  last  lap  of  the  trail 
at  whose  end  beamed  the  benign  countenance 
of  Handy  Andy. 

Yes,  spring  had  come  to  dwell  for  a  season 
in  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon.  I  saw  her 
that  last  day  on  the  trail  as  we  followed  it  on 
foot  or  in  chairs,  over  the  well-walked  nar- 
row mountain  paths  toward  the  city  of  An- 
cestral Abodes.  She  had  drawn  about  her 
fair  young  shoulders  a  marvelous  robe  of 
jade  green  gauze  starred  with  ruby  azaleas. 
She  wore  milk  white  plum  blossoms  upon  her 
breast,  and  in  her  hair  the  feathery  fronds  of 
young  bamboo.  She  was  decked  like  an  Ori- 
ental maiden  for  the  red  bridal  chair.  Oh, 
she  was  passing  fair! 

But  the  distant  mountaintops  are  projected 
against  the  glare  of  the  departing  sun  in 
purple  boldness  as  the  day  wanes — our  final 
day  on  the  trail.  We  linger  for  a  moment 
on  the  crest  of  the  last  heights  to  be  topped, 
with  a  tender  good  night  in  our  hearts  for 
the  lovely  world  which  we  seemed  to  be  leav- 


25 

ing  behind,  drowsy  now,  with  all  its  spring- 
time glory  upon  it. 

There  at  our  feet  upon  the  dark  side  of  the 
mountain  we  behold  the  trail's  end,  that  an- 
cient city,  rising  like  a  phantom  thing  from  a 
sea  of  spring  green,  and  protected  by  encir- 
cling mountain  sentinels  stern  and  strong. 
Once  more  the  chair  coolies  swing  us  upon 
their  tired  shoulders  and  the  last  descent  be- 
gins— and  ends. 

We  are  at  the  portal  in  the  high  wall 
which  surrounds  the  Hospital  of  the  Good 
Shepherd.  A  bell  clangs,  there  are  voices 
within.  Then  the  gate  swings  wide,  and 
there  stands  the  American  Woman  Doctor 
with  a  welcome  in  her  outstreched  hands  and 
in  her  radiant  eyes  a  great  gladness.  And 
just  behind  her,  with  dignified  gratification 
in  every  line  of  his  long  blue  coat  and  his 
close-fitting  black  satin  cap  with  its  red 
knob,  stands  he  whose  story  has  occasioned 
this  rambling  write-up  of  the  trail  in  China 
which  led  us  to  him. 


II 

A  CHINESE  HANDY  ANDY 


HE  Woman  Doctor  was  responsible 
for  his  being  called  by  the  some- 
what unusual  name  of  Handy 
Andy.  I  dare  say  this  Chinese 
man,  by  his  capable  all-aroundness,  had  re- 
minded her,  that  summer  when  she  built  the 
Hospital  of  the  Good  Shepherd  down  in  the 
fertile  Lek-du  valley,  of  his  Celtic  prototype. 
Already  you  know  of  the  trail  which  led 
us  to  him.  Now  I  am  telling  you  his  story 
as  I  had  it  from  the  Woman  Doctor  herself 
as  we  sat  in  the  fire-glow  after  supper,  in  her 
own  inglenook,  a  bit  removed  from  the  cen- 
ter of  hospital  activities. 

He  was  a  dignified  but  gracious  Chinese 
man,  this  Handy  Andy.  No  one  would  ever 
indulge,  when  referring  to  him,  in  the  usual 
terms  affected  by  flippant  foreigners  when 
writing  either  intimately  or  casually  of  the 
26 


A  CHINESE  HANDY  ANDY          27 

people  of  far  Cathay.  He  was  a  Chinese 
Man,  which  in  his  case  included  also  being 
a  scholar,  a  diplomat,  and  very  certainly,  a 
Christian  gentleman. 

The  Woman  Doctor  finding  quite  impos- 
sible for  the  hot  summer's  sojourn  her  first 
headquarters,  consisting  of  a  stuffy  room  or 
two  in  the  abode  of  somebody's  honorable 
ancestors,  was  forced  to  look  for  another  base 
from  which  to  work.  Furthermore,  after 
much  searching  for  cleaner — to  say  nothing 
of  cooler — quarters,  eventually  the  Woman 
Doctor  found  domicile  for  herself  and  her 
servant  in  the  house  of  Handy  Andy,  which 
stood  a  lap  or  two  up  the  mountainside,  and 
was  etched  out  of  a  background  of  bamboo 
groves.  There  flourished  the  buxom  part- 
ner of  his  choice,  or,  to  be  more  exact,  the 
choice  made  for  him  in  his  callow  days  by 
some  go-between,  the  matrimonial  agent  of 
his  honorable  parents.  Chinese  marriages 
make  no  claim  to  being  shaped  in  heaven. 
Why  should  parents  decide  for  their  progeny 
the  comparatively  unimportant  and  transient 
matters  of  childhood,  and  then  basely  aban- 


28        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

don  them  when  the  most  vital  and  significant 
question  of  marriage  matters  arises  ?  Plainly 
the  duty  of  making  this  choice  is  paramount 
to  that  of  all  others — so  at  least  reasons  the 
Chinese  parental  mind. 

Mrs.  Handy  Andy,  who  was  of  rather 
high  official  lineage,  may  have  with  docility 
permitted  herself  to  be  chosen  by  her  honor- 
able parents-in-law  to  share  the  domestic  for- 
tunes of  their  son,  but  she  never  exhibited 
any  particularly  striking  characteristics  of 
tractability  until  long  after  the  development 
in  the  life  of  her  somewhat  subdued  liege 
which  I  am  here  recording.  The  change  in 
her  was  solved  through  those  circumstances 
which  ultimately  led  her  to  become  a  Bible 
Woman.  After  that  great  thing  happened, 
with  the  Holy  Classic  under  her  arm  through 
many  years  did  she  patiently  and  joyously 
travel,  without  complainings,  in  torrid  heat 
or  sheets  of  rain,  that  the  untaught  women 
in  those  "other  villages"  might  hear  of  the 
great  miracle  which  had  made  her  own  life 
worth  while. 

In  the  early  years  various  joy  feasts  were 


A  CHINESE  HANDY  ANDY          29 

spread  in  the  house  on  the  mountainside  in 
honor  of  certain  tiny  almond-eyed  little 
strangers  who  came  to  insure  the  continuance 
for  many  generations  to  come  of  the  lineage 
of  their  father.  When  the  Woman  Doctor 
took  up  her  abode  in  that  house  the  wee 
strangers  had  become  very  much  at  home — 
rollicking  chunks  of  boys  and  girls,  their 
black  hair  done  in  cunning  patches  and  pig- 
tails, their  black  eyes  shining  with  mischief, 
their  blue  coats  and  trousers  going  to  make 
an  altogether  irresistible  juvenile  combina- 
tion. 

At  some  time  before  the  coming  to  his 
house  that  summer  of  the  Woman  Doctor, 
its  master  had  learned  of  the  "Doctrine"  to 
his  own  soul's  entire  satisfaction  and  his 
family's  entire  mystification.  That  their 
father  was  afflicted  with  a  strange  species  of 
insanity  was  confided  in  whispers  by  the 
children  to  the  Doctor  before  she  had  been 
under  the  roof  for  a  single  moon.  Each  day, 
they  solemnly  averred,  he  trod  the  steep  path 
which  led  through  the  bamboo  grove  at  the 
back  of  the  house,  not  once,  but  several  times. 


30        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

Infantile  curiosity  is  not  exclusively  an  Oc- 
cidental commodity.  Behold,  then,  these 
small  Chinese  delights  of  their  father's  heart 
secretly  trailing  that  most  honorable  person- 
age up  the  path  and  into  the  grove  of 
feathery  greenness  which  to  his  devout  soul 
had  become  the  oratory  within  whose  lace- 
like  walls  he  held  communion  with  an  unseen 
Presence. 

Not  only  so,  but  with  all  due  impressive- 
ness  was  this  sensational  fact  reported  to  the 
mother  of  the  house — ad  libitum  ad  nauseam. 
Had  they  not  seen  their  most  exalted  father 
upon  his  knees  there  among  the  bamboos, 
with  uplifted  face  and  closed  eyes  as  he  talked 
aloud  with  some  strange  God,  of  whom,  hunt 
afterward  as  they  would,  they  could  find  not 
the  faintest  trace? 

The  entire  family,  including  their  foreign 
guest,  when  upon  various  high  occasions  she 
was  bidden  to  partake  of  a  meal  with  them, 
could  testify  that  before  the  master  of  the 
house  would  taste  one  morsel  of  his  steaming 
bowl  of  rice  he  would  bow  his  head,  and  hold 
conversation  with  Some  One,  whom  none 


A  CHINESE  HANDY  ANDY          31 

of  them,  stare  about  the  room  with  wide-open 
eyes  as  they  would,  could  see.  Afterward 
one  of  the  servants  reported  to  his  exas- 
perated mistress,  who  had  no  sympathy 
whatever  with  such  erratic  behavior,  that  he 
had  distinctly  observed  the  Woman  Doctor 
herself  doing  the  same  mysterious  worship 
over  her  own  rice  in  her  own  apartment.  At 
what  possible  conclusion  could  the  idol- 
worshiping  mother  and  her  children  arrive, 
except  that  the  Doctor  was  afflicted  with  the 
same  sort  of  craziness  as  the  man  of  that 
house,  inasmuch  as  they  both  at  various 
times  spoke  aloud  to  Some  One  whom  no  one 
else  could  see? 

During  the  long,  hot  summer  days  rose 
certainly  if  slowly  the  walls  of  the  new  hos- 
pital. The  Woman  Doctor  found  her  hands 
more  than  full  as  she  supervised  the  proc- 
esses of  building  and  guarded  the  innumer- 
able points  which  invariably  arise  with  Ori- 
ental contractors.  All  of  these  points  were 
to  be  particularly  reckoned  with  if  the  funds 
at  her  command,  most  of  which  she  herself 
had  laboriously  gathered,  were  to  cover  the 


32 

final  cost  of  this  first  and  only  refuge  for 
suffering  women  and  children  in  all  that  sec- 
tion of  the  province.  In  fact,  it  was  almost 
too  much  of  a  task  for  even  the  Woman 
Doctor. 

In  spite  of  her  watchful  eye  all  sorts  of 
things  in  the  way  of  building  material  had 
a  mysterious  and  most  annoying  fashion  of 
disappearing  without  leaving  a  trace.  The 
situation  clearly  demanded  omnipresence, 
and  this,  with  all  her  equipment  of  brain  and 
body,  the  Woman  Doctor  had  never  been 
able  to  achieve.  By  day  she  was  very  con- 
fident, being  constantly  upon  the  ground.  By 
night  she  was  helpless,  for  with  all  her 
temerity  of  soul  and  nerve  she  couldn't  sleep 
and  at  the  same  time  keep  watch  over  a  half- 
finished  hospital. 

"Where  thieves  break  through  and  steal" 
is  no  mere  figure  of  speech  in  the  Orient. 
One  is  vastly  amused  at  first,  over  there, 
upon  sight  of  an  inclosing  wall  with  fanciful 
but  flimsy  ornamental  border  at  the  top  done 
in  plaster  in  a  sort  of  embroidery  design. 
But  he  changes  his  mind  when  he  learns  that 


A  CHINESE  HANDY  ANDY          33 

the  flimsier  the  coping  the  greater  the  clatter 
by  which  some  night  prowler  is  announced 
as  the  plaster  fancywork  crashes  into  pieces 
against  the  weight  of  the  ladder  by  means 
of  which  he  tries  to  climb  up  and  over  "some 
other  way."  Verily  I  mused  as  I  learned, 
after  all,  fancywork  may  have  its  uses ! 

The  Woman  Doctor  had  no  stone  adorn- 
ment atop  her  wall,  and  anyway  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  singlehanded  she  could  have 
managed  a  bandit  party  at  2  A.  M.,  though 
she  has  a  reputation  on  both  sides  of  the 
Pacific  for  her  skill  with  a  knife.  The  fact  is 
that  while  the  walls  of  the  Hospital  of  the 
Good  Shepherd  were  rising  the  services  of 
a  dependable  man  who  should  act  as  major 
domo  were  absolutely  essential.  Having 
been  a  close  observer  of  her  Chinese  host 
during  the  time  of  her  sojourn  beneath  his 
roof,  and  of  his  fidelity  under  the  trying 
conditions  involved  in  being  the  Christian 
head  of  a  non-Christian  home,  the  Woman 
Doctor  was  inspired  to  proffer  to  him  the 
job  of  overseeing  hospital  affairs. 

Handy  Andy  looked  very  gravely  at  her 


34        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

when  she  broached  the  subject  to  him,  and 
then  with  characteristic  Oriental  delibera- 
tion told  her  he  would  give  her  an  answer  in 
two  weeks.  Fortunately,  however,  his  de- 
cision was  reached  within  a  few  days,  and 
was  both  definite  and  favorable,  the  party 
to  the  second  part  assuring  the  Doctor  that 
regarding  her  offer  divine  direction  had  been 
given  him  in  a  vision. 

In  this  vision,  so  he  affirmed,  he  had  very 
clearly  seen  his  Master,  who  had  said  to  him 
plainly,  "Follow  the  Foreign  Doctor."  And 
the  Woman  Doctor,  rather  askance  at  such 
a  bold  declaration  of  divine  leading,  was 
moved  to  expostulate.  God  never  directed 
one  human  being  to  follow  another,  she  ar- 
gued to  him;  it  must  be  the  Great  Guide 
whom  he  had  been  directed  to  follow,  not  an 
American  Woman  Doctor!  Had  he  not, 
after  all,  been  mistaken — the  ears  of  his  soul 
been  a  bit  dull  of  hearing?  But  Handy  Andy 
remained  obdurate.  It  was  the  Foreign  Doc- 
tor whom  he  was  to  follow. 

Thereafter  with  a  great  solemnity  upon 
her,  the  Woman  Doctor  was  more  than  ever 


A  CHINESE  HANDY  ANDY          35 

careful  of  her  walking,  remembering  the 
millstone  penalty  of  him  who  causes  an- 
other, even  a  "little  one,"  to  stumble. 

So,  as  is  not  unusual  in  Chinese  families, 
the  man  of  the  house  in  the  bamboo  grove 
betook  himself  to  his  important  task,  the 
mother  of  his  children  remaining  with  her 
flock  on  the  mountainside.  If  the  truth  be 
told,  Handy  Andy  was  much  more  concerned 
for  the  salvation  of  the  souls  of  his  wife  and 
children  than  even  for  his  own  success  in  his 
new  managerial  position,  which  is  saying 
much.  In  regard  to  the  latter,  the  Woman 
Doctor  intimated  to  me  that  in  all  the  forty 
thousand  or  more  characters  in  the  Chinese 
language  there  were  none  sufficiently  strong 
to  express  the  measure  of  his  value  to  the 
hospital  project. 

Eventually  the  little  family  moved  down 
from  the  mountainside  and  became  dwellers 
in  the  hospital  compound.  This  was  after 
another  "vision"  in  which  Handy  Andy  had 
plainly  seen  his  wife  and  his  little  son  drown- 
ing in  the  depths  of  a  deep,  dark  well,  their 
imploring  hands  stretched  out  to  him  for  de- 


36        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

liverance.  The  Hospital  of  the  Good  Shep- 
herd almost  lost  him  then,  because  he  was 
convinced  that  it  was  his  plain  duty  to  go 
back  to  the  bamboo  grove  and  set  about  vig- 
orously to  bring  the  mother  of  his  children, 
with  all  of  them  also,  not  into  the  compound 
of  the  Hospital  of  the  Good  Shepherd — that 
was  not  his  plan — but  into  His  fold.  All  this 
he  got  out  of  his  vision.  I  myself  am  no 
scoffer  at  visions  capable  of  such  sane  in- 
terpretations. 

It  is  not  the  story  of  the  coming  of  his 
heart's  desire  for  his  family  that  I  am  here 
setting  down,  though  that  is  a  stirring  narra- 
tive. This  is  to  record  that  Christian  conse- 
cration may  be  much  enhanced  by  Christian 
diplomacy,  a  fact  finely  demonstrated  in  the 
planting  of  the  much  desired  Sunday  school 
in  the  City  of  Ancestral  Abodes  by  that  apos- 
tle of  the  Lord  called  by  the  Woman  Doctor 
Handy  Andy. 

Do  not  forget  that  this  same  apostle  of  the 
Lord  was  by  birth  of  no  mean  origin.  I  tell 
you  that  I  myself  have  walked  through  the 
mazes  of  his  own  ancestral  home,  where  in 


A  CHINESE  HANDY  ANDY          37 

the  old  days  two  hundred  people,  all  being 
of  the  families  of  his  own  clan,  were  dwellers 
— and  at  the  same  time,  too.  Likewise  there 
were  six  front  doors,  and  what  better  or 
more  adequately  than  this  architectural  fea- 
ture could  bespeak  its  abounding  hospitality  ? 
To  my  heart  this  also  spoke,  and  it  was  of 
another  many-mansioned  house  where  doors 
will  not  sag  on  rusty  hinges  nor  deserted 
halls  be  haunted  by  voices  long  silent. 

It  was  at  that  particular  time  of  the  year 
when  all  masculine  China,  to  the  extent  of 
fathers  and  eldest  sons,  streams  forth  to  the 
hillsides  to  do  Worship  at  the  graves  of  de- 
parted ancestors.  Also  they  place  upon  these 
graves  offerings  which  are  designed  not  only 
to  visualize  the  measure  of  their  filial  devo- 
tion, but  also  to  felicitate  materially  the 
spirits  of  the  departed  in  their  present  habi- 
tat. Remote  be  the  time  when  China,  satu- 
rate with  Western  irreverence,  shall  forget 
this  most  lovely  of  all  her  ancient  customs ! 

It  was  the  time  of  year,  I  say,  when  the 
fathers  and  big  boys,  most  imposing  in  their 
long  silk  coats,  went  out  to  the  graves, 


38        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

and  the  little  boys  stayed  at  home  in  utter 
insignificance — and  ordinary  blue  cotton 
coats. 

Now,  it  fell  out  that  just  at  this  time  in  his 
daily  Bible  reading  Handy  Andy  came  upon 
the  first  chapter  of  Matthew,  and  that  par- 
ticular portion  of  Scripture  with  us  not  often 
thumbed  because  of  much  reading,  seemed  to 
glow  before  the  eyes  of  this  most  practical 
dreamer  of  dreams  with  a  great  illumination. 
At  chapel  prayers  that  morning  he  observed 
that  he  noticed  how  the  Hebrews  of  the 
Lord's  day  made  very  much  of  the  ancestry 
of  their  honorable  houses,  even  as  had  been 
the  Chinese  custom  for  many  ages.  He 
could  not  but  deplore  that  the  younger  boys 
of  his  own  clan  knew  so  little  of  its  ancient 
history. 

Presently  he  crossed  the  railless  foot- 
bridge which  wormed  its  uncertain  way 
across  the  river,  and  divided  the  town  into 
two  parts  as  distinct  as  ever  were  the  three 
into  which  Gaul  was  divided,  and  entered 
one  of  those  six  front  doors  in  his  own  an- 
cestral house  within  which  discontented  little 


A  CHINESE  HANDY  ANDY          39 

Chinese  boys  who  couldn't  go  graveyarding 
were  dragging  out  a  dismal  day. 

Sympathy  was  sweet  to  that  accumulation 
of  infantile  misery,  so  Handy  Andy's  benign 
proposition  that  he  assist  them  in  having  an 
ancestral  celebration  of  their  own  met  with 
instant  response — that  is,  as  "instant"  as 
anything  in  the  Orient  can  be. 

In  the  reception  hall  of  "Heaven's  Well," 
that  three-walled  apartment  with  the  fourth 
dimension,  quite  open  and  giving  upon  the 
stone-flagged  court,  to  the  poetic  mind  of  the 
Chinese  the  bottom  of  a  "well,"  whose  cover 
is  the  blue  sky — in  this  room  gathered  with 
their  guest  that  group  of  younger  sons.  And 
the  guest,  that  subtle  apostle  of  the  "Doc- 
trine," his  eyes  flashing,  his  language  aglow-, 
recited  to  them  out  of  the  genealogy  of  their 
clan  the  glorious  exploits  of  their  famous 
ancestors  whose  tombs  in  the  hillsides  were 
the  shrines  of  family  veneration  and  worship. 
And  if  this  were  not  enough,  this  august 
uncle  of  theirs  opened  before  their  shining 
black  eyes  certain  ponderous  books,  the  most 
valued  possession  of  their  clan,  in  which  be- 


4O        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

sides  much  else  of  glorious  history,  all  the 
things  he  had  related  to  them  were  written 
down. 

The  first  adventure  into  genealogical  pas- 
tures was  a  huge  success.  At  the  most  ur- 
gent entreaties  of  the  Younger  Sons  it  was 
repeated  upon  two  or  three  occasions.  The 
Y.  S/s  were  thrilled  with  importance  and 
their  most  exalted  parents  highly  gratified 
that  into  the  fiber  of  these  young  sprouts  on 
the  family  tree  such  valuable  information 
was  being  infused. 

When  clan  enthusiasm  had  reached  its 
peak  the  instructor  quit !  In  vain  was  he  im- 
portuned to  resume  his  recitals  by  various 
of  the  Younger  Sons  who  chanced  to  meet 
him  here  and  there  as  he  looked  after  the 
business  of  the  Hospital,  which  long  since  had 
become  a  lighthouse  set  in  the  sea  of  human 
suffering  of  that  district.  Later  came  a  most 
polite  and  formal  letter,  written  in  Chinese 
characters  upon  bright  red  paper — quite  like 
a  wedding  invitation — urging  the  self-ap- 
pointed professor  of  the  history  of  his  house 
to  return  to  the  eager  group  in  the  reception 


A  CHINESE  HANDY  ANDY          41 

hall  of  Heaven's  Well  in  his  own  ancestral 
house,  but  he  went  not. 

It  was  only  after  a  formal  visitation  of  the 
head  men  of  his  clan,  who  pointed  out  the 
great  benefit  which  would  be  conferred  upon 
the  rising  generation  of  the  illustrious  clan 
which  was  his  as  well  as  theirs,  that  Handy 
Andy  rather  reluctantly  consented  to  resume 
his  labors  among  the  Younger  Sons. 

Very  adroitly  then  did  this  Christian  diplo- 
mat suggest  to  his  non-Christian  clansmen 
that  personally  he  would  be  much  advantaged 
could  one  certain  day  be  set  apart  wherein 
he  could  materially  assist  the  young  grafts 
on  the  family  tree  in  their  growth  toward  the 
ideals  of  filial  devotion  and  deeds  heroic  as 
exemplified  in  their  ancestral  annals. 

Besides  these  valuable  facts  he  said  he  had 
it  in  his  heart  to  teach  them  a  few  others. 
You  will  have  guessed  what  the  few  "others" 
were  which  to  this  hot-hearted  disciple  of 
Jesus  Christ  mattered  most,  being  those  re- 
ferring to  Him  in  whom  "all  the  families  of 
the  earth"  should  be  blest.  Also  he  suggested 
that  about  once  in  seven  days  he  could  con- 


42        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

veniently  leave  the  Hospital  and  travel  across 
the  rickety  footbridge  to  the  house  of  his 
ancestors  for  the  purpose  they  urged. 

So  it  fell  out  that  upon  that  day  which 
the  Christians  called  the  Sabbath  a  Chinese 
ambassador  of  Jesus  Christ  became  the  cen- 
ter of  a  permanent  group  of  boys,  which, 
under  his  inspired  guidance,  merged  pres- 
ently into  the  Sabbath  school  which  had  for 
long  been  the  desire  of  his  heart. 

Later  the  Sabbath  school  became  a  church. 

Was  not  I  myself  guided  by  Handy  Andy 
to  his  ancestral  home  of  which  I  have  told 
you?  And  did  not  my  own  eyes  behold  the 
reception  hall  of  Heaven's  Well,  which  now 
on  every  Sabbath  day  is  filled  by  a  worship- 
ing congregation? 


Ill 

THE  BLIGHT  OF  BEELZEBUB 


HE  led  me  out  of  the  delicate  loveli- 
ness of  her  room  where  we  had 
"tiffined"  together  up  a  broad  stair 
and  into  the  shaded  shelter  of  the 
sleeping  porch.  There  she  gently  urged  me 
into  a  steamer  chair  with  its  most  inviting 
lazy-looking  length,  while  she  herself  sat 
upon  a  bamboo  stool  at  my  side  and  told  me 
the  story  which  I  am  telling  you. 

"She"  in  this  case  was  the  wife  of  the 
Theological  Professor  in  the  College  for 
boys.  I  mean  by  that,  that  "He"  was  a  the- 
ological professor  four  days  in  the  week. 
The  other  three  both  "He"  and  "She"  were 
evangelists  known  and  adored  throughout 
all  the  tropical  countryside  through  which 
they  itinerated,  and  where  almost  like  forest 
leaves  those  other  villages  were  scattered. 
She  herself  had  come  out  to  south  China 
43 


44        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

young  and  enthusiastic  from  her  New  Eng- 
land hills,  and  had  had  her  various  and  sun- 
dry experiences  in  missionarying  before  she 
had  added  to  them  by  taking  on  the  Theologi- 
cal Professor.  And  it  was  of  one  of  these 
prenuptial  episodes  of  which  she  spoke  to 
me  on  that  afternoon  in  May. 

I  can  sense  again  the  setting  of  her  story 
now  as  I  tell  you.  I  can  see  the  long  ribbons 
of  sunlight  slanting  through  the  slits  in  the 
cool  green  of  the  shutters,  and  falling  into 
golden  patterns  on  the  matting  which  cov- 
ered the  floor.  She  sat  there,  slight  but  vital, 
her  soft  brown  eyes  glowing  like  gentle  stars 
to  light  a  face  of  classical  oval,  haloed  by  an 
aura  of  divinely  soft  brown  hair.  If  her  red 
lips  trembled  as  she  talked,  or  smiled  as  some 
half-forgotten  reminiscence  played  across 
her  mind,  it  was  only  to  enhance  the  sweet 
curve  of  her  mouth  or  to  reveal  a  fleck  of 
snow-white  teeth.  Add  to  all  this  the  flavor 
of  an  adorable  New  England  accent  and  a 
filet  lace  collar  and  you  will  comprehend  in- 
stantly why  the  Professor  digressed  from  his 
theology  far  enough  to  fall  in  love,  and  to  be 


THE  BLIGHT  OF  BEELZEBUB         45 

inspired  to  invite  her  to  itinerate  with  him 
through  life. 

That  was  a  weird  subject  of  which  we 
spoke  that  day — nothing  less  than  demon 
possession.  I  had  heard  strange  rumors, 
miraculous  tales,  having  to  do  with  such 
happenings,  during  my  wanderings  up  coun- 
try, and  of  these  I  had  spoken.  I  confess  that 
lying  there  in  that  lazy  chair  with  long  bars 
of  sunshine  slanting  across  me,  and  looking 
into  the  face  of  the  charming  wife  of  the 
Theological  Professor,  any  subject  in  which 
Mephisto  figured  seemed  remote.  However, 
I  had  asked  My  Lady  questions,  and  she  of 
the  dark-blue  gown  and  filet  lace  collar  was 
essaying  to  answer. 

"Demon  possession,"  she  began — and  then 
the  story  ran  on  even  as  I  shall  tell  you. 

She  had  come  to  China,  as  she  told  me, 
young  and  eager,  and  imbued  with  a  very 
broad  "Congregational"  belief.  This  variety 
of  belief,  she  went  on  to  elucidate,  had  no 
time  nor  room  for  the  recognition  of  a  power- 
ful personality  who  is  the  author  of  all  evil, 
and  is  continually  playing  upon  its  forces  to 


46        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

the  great  discomfiture  of  the  human  race. 
In  short,  to  her  New  England  mind  the  devil 
was  not.  What  other  folk  thought  him  to  be 
was  simply  a  lack  of  positive  good — a  hole 
in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  as  it  were.  But 
there  came  a  day  upon  which  her  mind  was 
to  register  a  change. 

The  adventure  overtook  her  when,  in  the 
third  year  of  her  missionarying  in  China, 
she  and  her  little  Bible  Woman  were  taking 
their  way  through  some  of  those  villages 
which  were  scattered  along  the  river  a  day 
or  two  from  the  mission  center. 

My  Lady  had  been  experiencing  that  ex- 
altation of  soul  which  occasionally  obsesses 
the  toiler  who  beholds  with  radiant  eyes  the 
fruit  hanging  luscious  upon  the  boughs  of 
his  endeavor.  And  why  not  ?  At  every  mud 
village  to  which  she  sampanned  she  had  been 
received  by  enthusiastic  women  who  jostled 
each  other  in  their  eagerness  to  welcome  her. 
"Bing-ang"  (Peace  to  you!)  they  had  sylla- 
bled in  ascending  scale  and  repeatedly  upon 
her  approach — "Bing-ang!  Bing-ang!"  And 
sadly  they  had  murmured,  "Please,  slowly, 


THE  BLIGHT  OF  BEELZEBUB         47 

slowly  walk,"  when,  the  teaching  of  the  Jesus 
Doctrine  ended,  My  Lady  was  clambering 
again  into  her  boat.  She  had  drunk  tea  and 
nibbled  watermelon  seeds  with  gracious 
gentle  women  in  houses  where  idol  shelves 
were  now7  a  matter  of  history,  and  whose 
little  children  no  longer  wore  hung  about 
their  necks  contrivances  in  which  their  souls 
were  safely  locked,  nor  jingling  bells  about 
their  baby  ankles  to  scare  away  the  ever- 
active  demons.  "The  Kingdom  is  coming!" 
My  Lady  had  no  doubt  of  the  fact,  and  there 
even  lurked  in  the  back  of  her  mind  the  com- 
fortable conviction  that  she  was  helping  to 
bring  it. 

And  then  the  thing  happened  which,  ac- 
cording to  My  Lady,  completely  shifted  her 
mental  gears  in  regard  to  a  devil  who  was  a 
real  person,  and  led  her  to  recognize  that 
evil  was  by  no  means  merely  a  lack  of  good. 
In  fact,  over  night  she  swung  clean  over  into 
the  camp  of  those  who  assert  that  "The 
Prince  of  this  world"  is  an  honest-to-good- 
ness  entity  who  exercises  a  malignant,  ma- 
levolent, active  force  for  evil ;  who  grips  real 


48        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

people,  and  ruins  them,  and  in  some  cases 
tortures  them  and  drives  them  mad. 

For  several  days  in  a  large  village  My 
Lady  and  her  Bible  women  had  taught  the 
women  and  visited  them  in  their  houses.  All 
was  going  well  and  it  was  with  peculiar  satis- 
faction of  spirit  that  she .  dropped  in,  one 
evening  toward  the  end  of  her  stay,  for  a 
call  upon  a  family  whose  every  member  had 
seemed  frankly  interested  in  her  disclosures 
of  a  better  way  than  idol  worship,  and  genu- 
inely determined 'to  abandon  the  old  way  of 
many  gods.  Very  often  she  had  been  a 
guest  in  that  house,  being  always  eagerly 
welcomed.  Very  slowly  and  plainly  and 
very  simply  had  she  taught  them  the  funda- 
mental mysteries  of  the  Doctrine,  and  on  this 
her  last  visit  to  them  before  her  journey 
down  the  river,  the  whole  family  had  de- 
clared their  intention  of  becoming  people  of 
the  Jesus  Way. 

Because  of  this  the  heart  of  My  Lady  beat 
so  joyously  that  she  could  scarcely  maintain 
with  dignity  her  proper  New  England  de- 
corum. For,  remember,  this  family  was 


THE  BLIGHT  OF  BEELZEBUB         49 

outstanding  in  the  community,  and  its  con- 
version would  mean  everything  to  the  Cause. 
Yet  My  Lady  was  cautious ;  she  must  be  very 
sure  of  her  course.  She  questioned  them 
closely  as  to  their  definitely  announced  in- 
tent, and  over  its  avowal  they  prayed  and 
sang.  The  Chinese  believe  very  devoutly  in 
the  power  of  song.  And  to  all  her  queries, 
there  was  always  the  bold  answer — "Yes,  we 
wish  to  be  Christians." 

Then  the  missionary,  in  order  to  superin- 
tend the  destruction  of  the  last  bridge  which 
might  lead  from  the  new  faith  back  to  the 
old,  applying  the  supreme  test — the  thumb 
screws,  as  it  were — to  their  newly  found 
purpose,  demanded  that  the  consent  of  each 
member  of  the  household  be  given  to  the 
burning  of  the  household  gods.  Without 
parley  or  reserve,  individually  and  collec- 
tively, permission  was  given.  There  was  no 
hesitation,  no  drawing  back.  "But  the  Kit- 
chen God,"  further  argued  My  Lady,  "will 
you  allow  me  to  take  even  that  down,  and 
with  my  own  hands?" 

Now  the  Kitchen  God,  it  would  seem,  is 


50        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

the  last  word — the  very  ultimate — to  the 
Chinese  mind  in  its  influence  upon  the  Over 
Powers,  who  are  alike  dispensers  of  good  and 
evil  rewards  for  deeds  done  in  the  Chinese 
body.  Upon  New  Year  occasions — the 
twenty-fourth  of  the  New  Year  month,  to 
be  exact — before  that  piece  of  red  paper 
representing  the  kitchen  deity,  which  is 
pasted  upon  the  wall  over  the  stove,  for  a 
half  day,  and  by  the  entire  family,  worship 
is  offered.  Below  it  smokes  the  fragrant 
incense,  and  delicacies  in  porcelain  bowls  are 
conveniently  placed  for  his  delectation. 
Treacle  and  honey  among  the  offerings  are 
sweet  suggestions  that  the  mouth  of  the  god 
be  closed  to  the  utterance  of  bitter  reports 
against  the  family.  Is  not  the  kitchen,  after 
all,  the  heart  of  the  house,  and  would  not  the 
ears  of  its  presiding  deity  be  open  to  all  of 
those  hidden  family  intimacies  which  should 
remain  unknown  to  the  public — and,  if  pos- 
sible, to  the  dreaded  Over  Powers  of  the 
spirit  world? 

So  in  order  to  insure  a  complimentary  re- 
port by  the  Kitchen  God,  when  at  the  New 


THE  BLIGHT  OF  BEELZEBUB         51 

Year  he  sojourns  for  ten  days  in  the  abode 
of  the  shades,  his  mouth  is  smeared  with 
honey,  and  he  is  conducted  into  the  spirit 
realm  upon  the  smoke  of  his  own  burning. 
In  ten  days  another  Kitchen  God  is  pasted 
upon  the  wall  and  the  new  record  begins. 

This  being  the  god  most  to  be  feared  and 
of  all  the  gods  the  one  to  whom  the  Chinese 
domestic  group  most  tenaciously  holds,  it 
took  much  boldness  upon  the  part  of  My 
Lady  to  follow  up  the  declared  purpose  of 
her  prospective  converts  by  suggesting  that 
she  herself  remove  from  the  wall  with  her 
own  hands  the  scrap  of  paper  which  repre- 
sented him. 

But  each  time  she  repeated  her  query  came 
the  united  response  ready  and  hearty:  "We 
do  believe !  Yes,  you  yourself  may  take  down 
the  Kitchen  God!" 

So  in  the  end  My  Lady  went  into  the 
kitchen,  followed  by  the  family,  pulled  out  a 
stool,  climbed  upon  it,  and  with  fingers  which 
trembled  with  eagerness  began  peeling  off 
the  red  paper  which  represented  the  tale- 
bearing god. 


52        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

Scarcely,  however,  had  the  first  edge  been 
loosened  when  out  from  that  corner  of  the 
kitchen  where  stood  the  little  mother,  sub- 
dued and  meek,  My  Lady  told  me  she  heard 
a  tiny  noise — a  sort  of  a  squeak  of  protest 
which  almost  paralyzed  her  fingers,  sending 
a  shivering  and  a  trembling  through  her  very 
bones.  It  seemed  veritably  as  though  she 
were  gripped  by  some  evil  power  quite  out- 
side herself,  and  she  was  almost  too  horrified 
to  speak — was  like  to  have  fallen  off  the 
stool.  But  presently  recovering  her  mental 
poise,  and  her  blood  having  somewhat 
thawed  in  her  veins,  she  turned  herself  to- 
ward that  corner  of  the  room  from  which 
the  uncanny  sound  had  come,  and  looking 
at  the  gentle  little  mother  who  stood  there 
said  somewhat  severely,  "Oh,  then  you  do 
not  wish  me  to  take  it  down — you  are  un- 
willing?" 

But  the  woman  in  the  corner,  who  un- 
doubtedly had  uttered  the  cry,  answered 
bravely,  though  her  voice  was  low,  "Yes,  I 
am  willing,"  and  her  husband  and  his 
mother,  and  even  the  children,  joined  in  a 


THE  BLIGHT  OF  BEELZEBUB         53 

most  earnest  response  saying,  "Oh,  yes,  we 
all  very  much  wish  you  to  take  it  down." 

So  down  it  came,  My  Lady  told  me, 
though  not  with  ease,  because  of  her  strange 
consciousness  that  somewhere  resistance  to 
the  process  was  being  registered.  And  after- 
ward prayer  was  offered  and  a  hymn  sung, 
and  with  ecstasy  in  her  heart  and  her  first 
real  trophy  of  service  in  China,  the  Kitchen 
God,  in  her  hand,  she  left  the  hospitable  home 
of  her  gracious  gentle  converts.  They  had  a 
joyful  evening,  My  Lady  and  her  Bible 
Woman.  They  prayed  for  every  member  of 
that  newly  converted  family  and  they 
thanked  God  for  them,  and  afterward  those 
two  went  joyfully  to  bed. 

It  should  have  been  a  day  sooner  that  the 
sampan  carried  them  down  the  river.  But 
vital  issues  hung  balanced  in  those  hours 
by  which  they  had  delayed  their  going,  and 
no  shadow  of  regret  that  they  had  not  made 
schedule  lurked  in  the  minds  of  My  Lady  and 
her  helper.  Souls  were  what  they  sought — 
and  had  joyously  found. 

And  now  before  they  were  carried  away 


54        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

on  the  river's  tide,  for  no  one  could  tell  how 
long,  the  good-by  visit  to  the  new  recruits 
to  the  ranks  of  the  doers  of  the  Doctrine  must 
be  made.  With  eyes  glowing  and  her  ex- 
altation of  soul  seeping  through  to  illuminate 
her  fair  young  face,  My  Lady  entered  the 
house  whose  doors  had  always  at  her  touch 
swung  wide  with  welcome.  On  into  the  room 
she  fared,  where  more  than  once  she  had 
bowed  with  the  family  in  prayer,  joyously 
expectant  of  the  greeting  which  would  mean 
more  this  morning  than  it  ever  had  before, 
because  it  would  be  the  mutual  greeting  of 
Christians. 

She  had  barely  stepped  over  the  high 
threshold — I  am  telling  you  just  as  she  told 
me — when  it  seemed  to  her  as  though  an  icy 
breath  from  a  mysterious  somewhere  blew 
across  her  face. 

Before  her  in  the  room  where  many  times 
she  had  been  an  honored  guest  were  the  same 
members  of  the  family  who,  upon  her  de- 
parture only  the  night  before,  had  accom- 
panied her  to  the  very  gate  in  their  outer 
wall  and  begged  her  to  "walk  slowly."  It 


THE  BLIGHT  OF  BEELZEBUB         55 

was  certainly  a  blighting  frost  which  lay 
upon  the  occupants  of  that  room.  The  head 
of  the  house,  at  his  bench,  a  scowl  upon  his 
face,  did  not  so  much  as  raise  his  head  from 
his  work.  The  old  grandmother  and  the 
two  adorable  round-faced  kiddies,  who  had 
eagerly,  almost  lovingly  crowded  up  close  to 
her  yesterday,  kept  their  places  in  the  far 
corner  of  the  room,  silent  and  sullen. 

But  it  was  the  gentle,  mild  little  mother 
who  centered  the  tragic  picture  now  un- 
rolling itself  before  the  wondering,  fright- 
ened eyes  of  My  Lady.  It  was  she  who  at 
the  first  loosening  of  an  edge,  in  the  process 
of  removal  of  that  thing  on  the  wall  which 
represented  a  much-to-be-feared  deity,  had 
involuntarily  emitted  a  low  cry  of  protest. 
Now  she  sat  upon  a  stool  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor,  with  such  a  look  of  savage  hatred  upon 
her  face  as,  My  Lady  assured  me,  she  could 
never  even  have  dreamed  as  being  possible 
to  overspread  a  human  countenance. 

With  what  courage  the  missionary  visitor 
could  summon  to  bolster  her  she  spoke  to 
them,  greeting  them  in  the  old  way,  and 


56        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

wording  her  wish  that  with  them  all  was 
well. 

And  then,  while  that  terrified  New  Eng- 
land girl  grasped  the  brown  wall  for  physical 
support,  that  little  Chinese  woman,  her  pan 
of  vegetables  in  process  of  paring  in  her  lap, 
responded  to  her  question  with  such  a  tirade 
of  vituperation  as  she  never  could  have  im- 
agined it  possible  for  a  human  being  to  syl- 
lable. On  and  on  ran  the  harangue,  the 
vileness  of  its  obscenity  seeming  to  penetrate 
every  corner  and  crevice  of  the  room.  Oc- 
casionally, out  of  pure  physical  exhaustion, 
her  very  breath  would  fail,  and  turning  her 
face  more  fully  upon  My  Lady  she  would 
literally  froth  at  the  mouth.  Again  and  again 
this  uncanny  orgy  of  verbal  abuse  was  re- 
peated, each  succeeding  torrent  more  violent 
than  the  one  before. 

Out  of  all  the  flood  of  incoherent  Chinese 
ravings  that  was  poured  into  her  ears  My 
Lady  patched  together  the  gist.  Had  the 
woman's  recital  been  continuous,  or  even 
calm,  it  might  have  framed  itself  into  a  brief 
but  tragic  statement. 


THE  BLIGHT  OF  BEELZEBUB         57 

Great  peace  had  brooded  over  the  house 
of  the  New  Christians,  when,  their  mission- 
ary visitor  having  departed  the  evening  be- 
fore, they  had  betaken  themselves  to  rest. 
If  any  member  of  the  family  was  apprehen- 
sive because  of  the  empty  idol  shelf,  or  the 
downfall  of  the  Kitchen  God,  no  mention  was 
made  of  the  fact.  But  the  dreams  of  the  mild 
little  mother,  who  had  fallen  asleep  along 
with  the  rest  of  the  household,  came  to  a 
sudden  and  direful  end  toward  midnight,  by 
the  sudden  entrance  through  her  door  of  the 
arch  enemy  of  the  race,  Satan  himself.  She 
saw  his  horrid  figure,  his  frightful  eyes. 
With  awful  voice  and  terrible  malignity  he 
accused  her  of  having  given  her  consent  for 
the  Foreign  Woman  to  tear  down  from  her 
wall  his  own  image  and  superscription.  He 
raised  a  frightful  lash  like  a  thousand  scor- 
pions and  laid  it  in  cuts  of  burning  fire  upon 
her  helpless  body.  In  vain  she  had  prayed 
the  little  prayer  which,  she  had  gathered 
from  My  Lady,  would  be  a  magic  talisman 
in  time  of  trouble — "Lord  Jesus,  save  me.'* 
Though  her  startled  eyes  peered  eagerly  into 


58        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

the  dark  for  his  appearance,  he  came  not. 
Every  repetition  of  that  prayer  brought 
down  upon  her  at  the  hands  of  her  demon 
visitor  new  and  awful  torture. 

Also  he  flayed  her  with  words,  every  one 
of  which  seemed  to  sink  into  her  flesh  like  a 
knife.  "What  do  you  mean,"  he  hissed,  "by 
renouncing  me — me,  whom  you  and  your 
fathers  before  you  have  served,  since  time 
for  you  was?  Have  not  I — / — put  rice  in 
your  bowl,  and  clothes  on  your  back?  And 
now7  you  and  your  household  desert  me — re- 
nounce me — me — for  the  God  of  the  Foreign 
Woman?  Come  with  me  to  hell !" 

He  reached  out  a  clawlike  hand  to  grasp 
her,  his  unspeakable  eyes  burning  her 
through  like  coals  of  fire — and  then  the 
dawn  broke,  and  she  was  alone. 

"But,"  she  shrieked  like  a  mad  woman,  as 
My  Lady,  who  had  gone  faint  and  white 
there  against  the  wall,  made  as  though  to 
urge  her  well  nigh  petrified  body  out  the 
door — "but  I'll  go  with  him  to  hell !  I  want 
to  go — /  want  to,  I  tell  you !"  And  as  if  to 
clinch  her  own  statement  with  another 


THE  BLIGHT  OF  BEELZEBUB         59 

reason,  she  shot  forth  a  final  addendum — 
"There  are  more  folks  there  anyway !" 

"And  so,"  I  murmured,  as  My  Lady 
ceased — "and  so — ?" 

"And  so,"  she  said,  "I  went  away  and  left 
them,  my  joy  turned  to  ashes.  There  was  not 
enough  left  of  me  to  even  speak  when  I  found 
myself  outside  the  wall.  But  this  I  knew,  in 
spite  of  my  New  England  theology,  that 
whatever  it  was  that  woman  saw  and  heard 
— explain  it  as  you  may — it  was  an  active, 
powerful  Force  of  Evil,  which  in  her  case 
conquered.  You  may  call  it  what  you  will. 
/  called  it  the  devil/' 


IV 
A  HOUSE  OF  UNDERSTANDING 

| HEY  were  going  home,  those  two, 
from  a  sojourn  of  ten  days  in  the 
Women's  Hospital.  'Those  two" 
were  daughters  of  Cathay,  young- 
ish and  by  no  means  unattractive,  even  as  we 
Occidentals  measure  good  looks.  "Home" 
to  them  meant  a  village  three  days  away,  in 
the  furthermost  mountain  they  could  see  in 
the  range  beyond,  over  whose  fair  contour, 
even  as  their  journey  began,  night  was 
already  draping  soft  shadows  of  mauve  and 
purple. 

Not  unfrequently  as  they  followed  the  nar- 
row paths  between  the  paddy  fields — those 
ascending  paths  paved  with  sharp  little 
stones  whose  edges  often  were  turned  bellig- 
erently upward — did  the  returning  patients 
from  the  Hospital  pause  an  instant  to  look 
back  upon  the  gray  building  from  which  they 
had  emerged  within  the  hour.  Across  its 
60 


A  HOUSE  OF  UNDERSTANDING       61 

friendly  walls  the  declining  sun  was  slanting 
a  glorious  shaft  of  crimson  color  like  a  bene- 
diction at  evening  time. 

It  is  small  wonder  that  now  and  again  the 
eyes  of  the  two  mountain  climbers  were 
turned  wistfully  back,  until  the  hospital  sil- 
houette had  itself  become  a  part  of  the  denser 
shadows,  which  having  completely  blacked 
out  the  noisy  city  upon  whose  border  stood 
the  House  of  Healing,  had  crept  with  sinister 
surety  upon  it  also.  For  a  House  of  Healing 
it  had  been  indeed  to  them,  two  neighbors, 
coming  down  from  that  village  which  lay 
three  days  away  in  the  heart  of  the  purple 
heights.  Upon  the  slender  thread  of  a 
passing  rumor  that  the  Foreign  Doctor  in  the 
hospital  down  in  the  valley,  by  some  strange 
power  of  necromancy,  could  clothe  ailing 
women  with  health  as  with  a  garment  they 
had  essayed  their  great  adventure.  And  all 
they  had  heard — and  more — the  Doctor  had 
done  for  them,  though  not  by  magic,  as 
eventually  they  were  to  know. 

What  was  of  far  more  moment  to  the  Two 
Pilgrims  from  the  mountains  in  search  of 


62        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

health,  the  House  of  Healing  had  become  to 
them  the  House  of  Understanding,  and  it 
was  of  this  more  than  of  the  other  about 
which  both  women  were  thinking  as  night 
dropped  a  dark  curtain  between  them  and 
the  valley  below,  where  there  stood  a  Chris- 
tian hospital  for  non-Christian  women. 

Very  readily  had  their  not  overly  serious 
disorders  yielded  to  the  skillful  ministrations 
of  the  Foreign  Doctor.  Ten  short  days  had 
sufficed  to  make  scientific  corrections  in 
physical  conditions  which  without  such  treat- 
ment must  easily  have  tied  the  patients  to  the 
questionable  comfort  of  their  hard  board 
beds  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.  However 
that  may  have  been,  of  far  greater  signifi- 
cance were  the  mental  operations  performed, 
the  spiritual  correction  established  in  the  case 
of  the  mountain  patients  in  that  House  of 
Understanding.  So  it  was  not  the  former 
but  the  latter  phase  of  their  ten  days'  ex- 
perience in  the  Hospital  which  upon  their 
homeward  way  filled  the  minds  of  the  return- 
ing travelers,  and  likewise  moved  their 
tongues  to  speech. 


A  HOUSE  OF  UNDERSTANDING       63 

Bo-ai  spoke  first.  Bo-ai's  mother  had 
given  her  that  lovely  name — whose  meaning 
in  American  is  Precious  Love — because  she 
alone  of  three  little  daughters  whom  the  in- 
considerate gods  had  permitted  to  invade  the 
family  circle  had  been  permitted  by  the  sooth- 
sayers to  remain  in  her  arms.  She  had  loved 
all  her  tiny  baby  girls,  that  Chinese  mother, 
who  long  since  had  been  gathered  to  her  an- 
cestors, and  whose  red-lacquered  coffin  had 
been  received  into  the  cavernous  depths  of 
the  great  horseshoe  tomb  of  her  family  on 
the  mountainside.  She  being  a  woman  had 
certainly  loved  her  girl  children,  but  tradi- 
tion and  custom  and  the  sentence  of  the 
soothsayer  must  not  be  gainsaid — and  there 
was  no  denying  the  expensiveness  of  girls. 

It  was  Bo-ai  who,  between  hard-taken 
breaths,  because  the  mountain-path  was  so 
steep,  remarked  convincingly  to  Chieng-ging, 
her  comrade  on  the  upgrade  trail,  that  "cer- 
tainly and  beyond  all  peradventure,  the  For- 
eign Doctor  exceeded  all  other  humans  in 
knowledge  as  well  as  skill."  This  seemed  to 
her  passing  strange,  when  one  considered 


64        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

that  the  Foreign  Doctor  was  a  woman.  Even 
the  children  in  the  street  could  repeat  the 
age-old  proverb  current  among  them  all — 
"A  learned  man  buildeth  the  walls  of  a  city, 
but  a  learned  woman  teareth  them  down." 
Yet  there  was  a  woman  down  on  the  plain 
there  who  had  reared  the  walls  of  a  House  of 
Healing  which  was  also  a  House  of  Under- 
standing, because  into  it  entered  women, 
even  Chinese  women  like  themselves,  to  be- 
come thinking  beings  like  herself. 

"Also,"  Chieng-ging  replied,  when  because 
of  the  stubborn  upness  of  the  trail  the  two 
had  sat  down  to  rest,  leaning  against  a  great 
bowlder  over  which  wide-eyed  briar  roses 
clambered,  "Also,  the  touch  of  the  Foreign 
Doctor's  hand,  even  when  its  touch  was  pain, 
was  past  all  one's  thinking  most  gentle." 

Chieng-ging  would  have  much  reason  to 
remember  a  soft  touch.  The  hand  of  her 
mother-in-law,  who  instead  of  herself  ruled 
her  house  and  her  family,  had  been  heavy 
upon  her  since  that  day  in  her  young  maiden- 
hood, when  in  her  red  bridal  chair  she  had 
been  brought  home  to  her  husband's  ances- 


A  HOUSE  OF  UNDERSTANDING       65 

tral  abode.  "Thousand  Gold"  was  her  name, 
done  into  American,  but  that  was  no  indica- 
tion that  in  her  own  home  her  value  was  so 
measured.  She  was  quite  unworthy  of  regard 
or  dignity  of  station,  inasmuch  as  she  was 
but  the  mother  of  daughters. 

Even  when  late  in  the  night  the  two  travel- 
ers sat  apart  in  a  quiet  corner  of  the  inn 
where,  because  of  the  darkness  and  the  dan- 
gers of  the  narrow  path,  shelter  until  dawn 
had  been  secured,  their  conversation  was 
mostly  of  their  great  adventure  and  all  which 
clung  to  the  memory  of  it.  Besides  the  Doc- 
tor, and  mostly  they  spoke  of  the  never-ceas- 
ing wonder  of  her,  they  talked  of  the  gentle 
nurses,  Chinese  women,  young,  as  they  them- 
selves had  been  only  a  few  years  back.  Car- 
ing for  the  sick  is  neither  a  very  high  nor 
even  a  very  honorable  calling  in  some  places 
in  the  world,  and  surprise  that  this  task  had 
been  raised  to  one  of  real  merit  and  even 
distinction  was  still  very  much  in  their  minds. 

The  very  servants,  so  their  talk  ran  on, 
who  prepared  the  vegetables  and  did  the 
humble  tasks  of  the  compound  were  very 


66        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

much  of  a  quiet,  peaceable  sort  of  folk. 
Never  once  during  the  stay  of  the  two  friends 
had  either  of  them  witnessed  or  even  heard 
of  a  brawl  among  them.  An  almost  unbe- 
lievable thing  did  this  seem  to  them,  being 
accustomed  as  they  were  to  the  vocal  on- 
slaughts, so  much  a  factor  in  the  general  pro- 
gram of  Chinese  community  and  domestic 
matters. 

In  foreign  lands  where  mission  enterprises 
function  there  are  inevitably  a  number, 
greater  or  less,  of  wee  folks.  In  the  wards 
and  on  the  wide  verandahs  of  the  Hospital 
of  the  Good  Shepherd  happy  children  might 
always  be  seen  playing  among  themselves, 
or  with  their  amahs.  The  amahs  never 
scolded  or  shrieked  at  the  wee  bodies,  and 
the  latter,  although  almond-eyed  and  olive- 
skinned  like  their  own  babies,  seemed  some- 
how of  a  different  world.  Possibly  they  were 
better  babies  because  of  better  beginnings — 
anyway  they  were  different. 

But  outside  of  the  Foreign  Doctor  herself 
nothing  which  the  two  mountain  patients  had 
observed  in  the  hospital  realm  had  impressed 


- 


w 

c/) 

W 


u 
< 

O 

H 

b 

o 


A  HOUSE  OF  UNDERSTANDING       67 

them  quite  as  amazingly  as  the  Chinese 
women  within  it  who  could  read!  Concern- 
ing this  point  there  were  no  limits  to  their  en- 
thusiasm. When  one  reflects  that  out  of 
every  one  hundred  of  China's  rank  and  file 
five  only  can  decipher  the  printed  character, 
it  is  not  strange  that  Bo-ai  and  Chieng-ging 
were  struck  with  amazement  that  every 
woman  in  the  Foreign  Doctor's  hospital 
could-  read,  from  that  most  Exalted  One  her- 
self down  to  the  youngest  serving  maid. 
Indeed,  the  two  Bible  women,  who  day  after 
day  sat  in  the  outer  room  where  patients 
waited,  and  there  read  to  them  out  of  the 
Holy  Classic,  were  no  more  adept  at  leafing 
its  sacred  pages  than  were  the  nurses,  and 
even  the  older  children. 

For  the  three  days  of  the  journey  back  to 
the  village  in  the  top  of  the  highest  mountain 
did  very  much  conversation  take  place  upon 
all  these  points.  And  when  invariably  at 
intervals  there  was  raised-  the  inquiry  as  to 
the  reason  for  all  these  things  so  much  to  be 
desired  by  any  woman,  always  the  explana- 
tion mutually  agreed  upon  was  the  same.  It 


68        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

was  that  those  other  women',  like  themselves, 
and  yet  so  very  unlike,  were  Persons  of  the 
Doctrine — Christians. 

The  men  of  their  houses  offered  no  ob- 
jection when,  as  is  the  custom  in  China, 
their  dutiful  wives  first  craved  their  permis- 
sion to  discard  the  worship  of  the  household 
gods,  and  of  those  other  hideous  ones  down 
in  the  temple,  and  become  followers  of  that 
Jesus  Christ  of  whom  so  lately  they  had 
learned.  The  men  had  very  properly  in- 
quired what  "being  a  Christian"  included, 
and  very  simply  the  two  women  told  them 
that  which  in  ten  days  they  had  absorbed 
of  the  new  Doctrine.  The  gist  of  their  in- 
formation to  the  men  was  that  the  content  of 
the  Doctrine  was  like  to  express  itself  in 
quiet  voices  speaking  gentle  words,  and  in 
hands  which  delighted  in  tender  ministra- 
tions. This  they  told  them. 

Also  they  begged  permission  to  go  one  day 
in  the  week  a  day's  journey  down  the  other 
side  of  their  own  mountain  where,  according 
to  the  word  of  the  Foreign  Doctor,  a  Person 
of  the  Way  would  speak  words  concerning 


A  HOUSE  OF  UNDERSTANDING       69 

the  Doctrine.  This  day,  which  was  regu- 
larly set  apart  by  Christians  for  worship  and 
which  was  called  the  Sabbath,  would  fall 
upon  the  third  day  after  their  return  from 
the  Hospital,  for  very  carefully  had  they  kept 
this  fact  in  their  minds.  Upon  their  solemn 
word  that  not  one  small  item  of  their  house- 
keeping responsibilities  should  be  omitted  on 
that  day — very  certainly  also  that  ample  pro- 
vision should  be  made  in  the  way  of  supplies 
of  toothsome  food  of  the  variety  which  lies 
close  to  men's  ribs — the  heads  of  those  two 
houses  gave  their  consent  for  the  church- 
going  venture  of  their  wives. 

Even  before  the  sun  had  risen  high  enough 
to  scatter  its  showers  of  gold  over  the  bam- 
boo fronds  or  kiss  the  dew  from  the  sleepy 
eyelids  of  the  flowers  which  starred  the 
mountainside,  Bo-ai  and  Chieng-ging  were 
upon  their  way.  This  was  to  be  a  day  to 
them  of  spiritual  outreach  and  their  eager 
faces  and  their  shining  eyes  proclaimed  to 
every  passing  wayfarer  on  the  mountain 
paths  that  they  were  bound  upon  some  happy 
and  wholly  unusual  errand. 


70        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

Very  great  satisfaction  and  very  sweet 
content  glowed  upon  the  faces  of  the  two 
friends  when,  for  all  their  long  faring,  with 
not  the  tiniest  fleck  of  dust  visible  upon  their 
blue  coats  and  wearing  against  the  glossy 
blackness  of  their  hair  a  few  waxen  petals  of 
the  plum  blossom,  they  reached  at  last  their 
objective,  a  tiny  church  in  the  valley. 

They  entered  with  timid,  noiseless  steps, 
uncertain  of  what  might  be  expected  of 
women  like  themselves,  as  yet  not  at  all  sure 
of  the  ways  of  Persons  of  the  Doctrine  in 
such  a  case. 

In  far  away  little  churches  like  this  one, 
hidden  in  some  valley  of  southern  China, 
there  is  announced  properly  enough  an  hour 
at  which  worship  begins.  The  blue  coated 
congregation,  however,  made  up  of  folks 
who,  like  Bo-ai  and  Chieng-ging,  must  come 
from  long  distances,  and  upon  their  own  feet 
at  that,  do  not  always  arrive  upon  the  tick 
of  the  clock,  though  in  China  even  the  clock 
does  not  seem  to  hurry.  Because  of  these 
things,  then,  there  is  nothing  arbitrary  about 
the  hour  of  beginning  the  worship.  That  be- 


A  HOUSE  OF  UNDERSTANDING       71 

gins  when  the  congregation  gathers,  and 
upon  this  day  its  assembling  was  unusually 
delayed. 

The  service  ended  at  last,  and  the  two  new 
seekers  after  truth  had  again  taken  the  trail 
toward  the  heights  where  their  village 
perched.  It  was  hard  going,  the  journey 
back,  for  always  the  path  wound  upward. 
The  shadows  too  slanted  long  across  the  val- 
ley, and  the  wind,  now  that  the  sun's  fires 
had  dwindled,  blew  chill  across  their  faces. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  black  night  would 
envelop  them  long  before  they  could  reach 
their  own  doors,  and  that  at  the  very  thought 
of  the  certain  anger  of  their  men  their  knees, 
wearied  to  pairr  with  the  climbing,  trembled 
under  them,  they  clasped  hands  in  the  dark- 
ness and  agreed  that  the  day  had  been  worth 
all  it  would  cost.  They  had  learned  more 
fully  of  the  Doctrine,  and  the  sinews  of  their 
spirits  were  strengthened,  as  after  days  were 
to  prove. 

It  was  over  after  a  little,  the  cruel  fury  of 
their  men  because  of  their  late  home-coming. 
Even  the  marks  which  this  fury  had  laid 


72        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

across  their  backs  eventually  faded.  But 
the  words  concerning  the  Doctrine  which 
they  had  heard  that  Sabbath  day  in  the  val- 
ley church — they  did  not  fade. 

If  men  could  decree  that  women  could  not 
be  Christians  when  being  such  involved  go- 
ing to  church  one  day  in  seven,  then  women 
could  decide  that  as  for  them  they  would  be 
Christians  without  going  to  church. 

Also  after  much  thinking,  and  between 
them  talking  it  all  over,  and  withal  with  the 
full  knowledge  of  how  little  fitted  they  were 
to  undertake  so  great  a  project,  the  two  new 
followers  of  the  Doctrine  concluded  that  they 
themselves  must  establish  a  church. 

So  sometimes  does  the  Spirit  of  all  truth 
lead  trusting  and  sincere  souls  into  the  way 
of  a  great  adventure  for  God. 


V 
THE  SIGN  OF  THE  CROSS 


JJO-AI  and  Chieng-ging  never  forgot 
for  one  small  moment  that  their 
sole  theological  and  religious  back- 
ground consisted  of  what  they  had 
learned  in  a  stay  of  ten  days  in  a  Christian 
Hospital  for  Women,  and  one  service  in  a 
little  church  in  the  valley.  Also  they  knew 
that  the  portion  of  the  Doctrine  which  had 
trickled  through  their  ignorance  and  per- 
manently remained  in  their  memories  must 
perforce  furnish  forth  all  the  spiritual  pabu- 
lum with  which  such  new  followers  as  might 
join  them  could  be  provided.  Neither  of  the 
women  could  read  and  there  was  no  base  of 
supplies,  spiritual  or  intellectual,  upon  which, 
when  their  very  limited  store  of  knowledge 
was  exhausted,  they  might  draw  for  fresh 
material. 

In  fact,  the  whole   course  in  Christian 

73 


74        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

homiletics  offered,  when  in  due  time  this 
branch  of  the  one  universal  Church  of  God 
became  operative  in  a  far  off  mountain  in 
China,  consisted  of  exactly  three  things. 
These  were :  the  Apostles'  Creed,  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  and  that  Star-Spangled  Banner  of 
Missions,  "Jesus  loves  me,  this  I  know." 
But  the  greatest  asset  of  all  in  the  planting 
of  the  new  enterprise  was  that  down  in  the 
Hospital,  Bo-ai  and  Chieng-ging  had  them- 
selves learned  to  pray.  Truly  this  was  great- 
est of  all. 

Now,  you  must  not  be  forgetting  that  the 
training  of  the  two  women  in  the  useful  art 
of  establishing  churches  had  covered  just  ten 
days.  Also  you  must  have  imagined  that 
the  hindrances  standing  ready  to  block  the 
new  project  were  many  and  serious.  One 
was  disposed  of  when  a  neighbor  woman, 
though  inspired  with  nothing  more  than 
sheerest  curiosity,  offered  a  room  in  her  more 
ample  house  for  the  meeting  place  of  the  ex- 
pected congregation. 

The  question  as  to  the  size  of  the  congre- 
gation was  settled  when  at  the  initial  service, 


75 

called  with  much  trepidation,  the  upper  room 
was  quite  filled  to  capacity  with  women  and 
children. 

Possibly,  however,  of  all  the  problems  to 
be  solved  that  of  thinking  through  some  plan 
by  which  with  unquestionable  accuracy  the 
Sabbath  day  might  be  marked  was  most 
stubbornly  difficult.  That  this  must  be  set 
apart  as  holy  unto  the  Lord  for  reverent 
meditation  and  attendance  at  worship  if  one's 
men  didn't  mind — all  this  the  founders  of 
the  new  church  were  sure.  But  how  to  tell 
just  which  out  of  all  the  long  procession  of 
dull,  monotonous  days  which  dawned  upon 
their  village  and  dragged  through  it  and 
died,  was  to  be  halted  and  appropriated  as 
the  Sabbath — this  they  did  not  know.  The 
moons  they  numbered,  but  unless  it  was 
marked  down  in  the  book  of  their  history  or 
tradition  no  day  was  noted.  Certainly  the 
foreign  custom  of  observing  one  day  in  seven 
for  ceasing  work  and  "doing"  the  Doctrine 
was  most  difficult  to  follow  when  there  was 
no  way  of  knowing  which  particular  day  it 
should  be. 


76        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

I  know  in  China  a  certain  devout  old  per- 
son of  the  Doctrine  who,  being  too  far  upon 
life's  way  to  permit  his  memory  to  keep  up 
with  him,  never  can  think  to  close  his  shop 
until  he  sees  the  missionary  go  past  his  door 
on  her  way  to  Sabbath  school.  Then  always 
he  hobbles  forth  and  puts  up  his  shutters  and 
hangs  upon  a  nail  driven  into  one  of  them 
a  sign  in  Chinese  that  would  be  in  the  Amer- 
ican equivalent  of  "Closed  because  this  is 
the  Lord's  Day."  So  does  this  old  person 
of  the  Doctrine  announce  his  Christian 
standing. 

But  through  the  mountain  village  where 
lived  Bo-ai  and  Chieng-ging  no  missionary 
had  ever  treked  on  her  way,  thereby  indicat- 
ing to  two  anxious  women  that  the  divinely 
appointed  day  for  worship  had  come.  But 
think  out  the  trying  puzzle  they  must — and 
they  did. 

At  first  it  was  suggested  by  Bo-ai  that 
there  be  adopted  a  system  of  straight  marks, 
drawn  carefully  with  the  writing  brush  upon 
the  wall  of  the  upper  room,  the  place  of  wor- 
ship— one  for  each  common  day,  the  seventh 


THE  SIGN  OF  THE  CROSS  77 

for  the  Sabbath.  Later  this  plan  was  sadly 
rejected.  All  straight  marks  look  much  the 
same,  and  in  such  a  maze  of  marks  as  were 
like  to  be  drawn  accuracy  as  to  the  day  to 
be  especially  set  apart  would  not  be  possible. 
Women,  too,  are  so  stupid — so  slow  of 
memory ! 

Most  tangles,  give  them  time  enough,  will 
eventually  untangle  of  themselves.  Chieng- 
ging  it  was  to  whom  was  vouchsafed  the  in- 
spiration. It  was  she  who  remembered  with 
fresh  vividness  what  she  had  learned  from 
the  Foreign  Doctor  of  that  holy  Jesus  God, 
who  being  himself  sinless  had  most  unjustly 
been  stretched  upon  a  cross  for  the  sins  of 
others,  her  own  included.  So  it  was  she  who 
suggested — timidly,  because  she  was  not  sure 
that  it  was  reverent — that  his  day  be  marked 
with  the  symbol  of  his  suffering,  the  cross. 

Eventually  it  fell  out  that  in  the  ecclesias- 
tical fresco  which  was  begun  upon  the  wall 
of  the  upper  room  on  that  day  when  this  em- 
bryo church  first  functioned  the  basic  motif 
was  a  cross. 

Just  how  long  afterward  I  do  not  know, 


78        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

but  of  a  certainty  it  was  several  years,  that 
a  Chinese  pastor  shepherding  a  flock  of 
Christians  well  established  in  the  Way  in  a 
city  far  across  a  distant  valley,  felt  within  his 
heart  a  strange  yearning  toward  "those  other 
sheep"  wandering  in  spiritual  darkness  in  the 
purple  mountains  whose  shadowy  outlines 
were  becoming  to  him  a  daily  challenge. 
Eventually  he  became  unable  to  resist  the 
call  of  those  helpless  human  things,  intrud- 
ing as  it  did  upon  his  sensibilities  like  the 
bleating  of  lost  lambs.  Ultimately  the  Chi- 
nese pastor  took  his  way  to  the  mountains 
far  away  across  his  own  valley,  consumed 
with  his  determined  intent  to  lead  those 
"other  sheep"  into  the  safe  fold  of  Divine 
Love. 

The  journey  was  a  matter  of  several  days, 
but  every  step  of  the  way  his  heart  beat  with 
a  great  exultation  because  of  the  glory  of  his 
mission.  If  he  was  footsore  when  at  last  he 
had  scaled  the  heights  and  at  the  end  of  the 
last  long  day  had  rested  in  a  mountain  inn,  so 
also  was  he  glad,  for  now  his  real  shepherd- 
ing might  begin. 


THE  KETHODiST  EPisco'P 
.CHURCH  4T  DA  IMNG^TCOCH 
TKts  JL&  trvc xr^icKvn-ck, 


THE  OLDEST  METHODIST  CHURCH  IN 
ASIA,  AT  FOOCHOW 


THE  SIGN  OF  THE  CROSS  79 

But  though  the  raucous  noises  of  the  vil- 
lage streets  had  given  way  to  the  muffled 
murmur  of  family  noises  behind  shuttered  lit- 
tle shops  or  brown  mud  walls,  still  always  at 
the  Chinese  mountain  inn  will  be  gathered  the 
curious  crowd  of  men,  whose  very  isolation 
urges  them  toward  that  center  of  possible 
outside  communication.  It  was  to  such  a 
group  respectfully,  though  eagerly,  gathered 
around  the  pastor  from  the  distant  valley, 
and  in  the  dingy  half  dark  of  the  inn,  that 
he  spoke  of  the  mission  which  had  drawn  him 
to  those  heights. 

Very  intently,  very  politely  did  the  moun- 
tain men  hear  him  through.  If  occasionally 
in  the  lantern's  dim  glare  a  significant  look 
passed  from  eye  to  eye  about  the  circle,  no 
one  spoke.  Not  until  the  guest  had  fully 
spoken  many  words  concerning  the  Doctrine 
and  his  hot-hearted  hope  that  soon  there 
might  be  Christians  among  them,  was  the 
silence  broken. 

It  was  after  the  pastor  had  altogether 
ceased  that  at  last  out  of  that  deep  silence 
which  lay  upon  them  there  spoke  a  voice. 


8o        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

It  was  an  old  voice,  coming  from  one  man 
in  the  gathered  group  to  whom  the  years 
clung  heavily.  His  were  quiet  words,  but 
clear  and  compelling,  and  what  he  said  was : 
"There  are  Christians  in  these  mountains. 
The  place  of  their  dwelling  is  the  next  vil- 

lag*.'1 

My  pen  does  not  know  how  to  write  down 
for  you  here  the  measure  of  the  great  amaze- 
ment of  the  guest  from  the  plain.  Naturally, 
having  long  known  of  the  purple  mountains, 
unoccupied  by  evangelist,  unvisited  by  mis- 
sionary, it  was  with  great  difficulty  that  he 
was  convinced  that  the  sole  purpose  of  his 
visit  had  already  mysteriously  become  an 
achievement.  Even  when,  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  brief  sentence  voiced  by  the  old  man, 
a  murmur  of  assent  ran  through  the  group, 
the  shepherd  of  the  flock  in  the  valley  found 
believing  it  a  difficult  business.  Could  it  be 
possible  that  preceding  his  own  coming,  in- 
spired by  such  a  lofty  ambition  as  was  his, 
had  come  another  whose  mission  had  been 
identical  with  his  own? 

One  need  not  remain  in  doubt  when  indis- 


THE  SIGN  OF  THE  CROSS  81 

putable  proof  is  said  to  be  near  at  hand.  Al- 
though all  the  mountain  was  enwrapped  in 
the  soft  blackness  of  a  southern  night,  and 
few  in  China  then  venture  out  over  the  nar- 
row paths  set  with  sharp-edged  stones, 
which  rim  sheer  and  frightful  precipices, 
there  presently  emerged  from  the  inn  a  blue- 
coated  procession  of  men  led  by  one  very  old, 
whose  unsteady  hand  held  a  lantern.  It  was 
a  distance  through  the  dark  to  the  next  vil- 
lage a  full  six  li,  but  the  spirit  of  the  visitor 
to  whom  had  just  been  given  such  astound- 
ing information  could  brook  no  delay,  which 
if  he  wait  until  morning,  must  span  the  re- 
mainder of  the  night. 

Because  then  of  the  urgency  of  the  guest 
and  also  because  of  their  own  certainty,  the 
mountain  men  trod  the  path  through  the 
dark,  to  find  themselves  after  a  while  slip- 
ping noiselessly  through  the  one  street  of 
the  village  of  their  quest.  Before  a  house  a 
bit  ampler  and  somewhat  better  than  the 
others  which  faced  the  street,  huddling  to- 
gether in  close  friendliness,  the  old  man  with 
the  lantern  came  to  a  halt. 


82        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

There  was  a  sharp  rap  at  the  outer  door — 
a  few  words  of  greeting  in  the  darkness. 
Then  the  silent  little  procession  passed 
within,  and  moved  slowly  up  the  stairs.  A 
door  swung  into  a  block  of  open  space, 
carved  out  by  the  lantern's  glare  into  the 
proportions  of  a  room. 

If  anywhere  in  all  the  world  one  special 
yet  perfectly  ordinary  spot  can  be  trans- 
formed into  a  spiritual  "upper  room"  be- 
cause to  that  sanctum  once  in  seven  days 
there  comes  Jesus  Christ  to  commune  with 
his  friends,  then  this  room,  revealed  by  the 
lantern  glow  in  all  its  pitiful  bareness,  was 
surely  such  an  one. 

Eagerly,  almost  violently,  did  the  pastor 
from  the  valley,  standing  there  within  the 
shimmering  aura  of  the  dim  light,  grasp  the 
lantern  from  the  hand  of  the  old  man  who 
carried  it.  He  held  it  high  above  his  head 
as,  peering  sharply  through  the  half  light,  he 
passed  quickly  around  the  four  walls  of  the 
room.  Upon  these  four  walls  he  beheld  an 
ecclesiastical  fresco  which,  a  matter  of  years 
before,  was  begun  by  two  humble  women — 


THE  SIGN  OF  THE  CROSS  83 

disciples,  however,  of  our  Lord,  whom  they 
had  met  to  their  soul's  satisfaction  during  a 
stay  of  ten  days  in  a  Christian  Hospital  for 
Chinese  Women. 

What  the  pastor  from  the  plain  below  saw 
was  a  row  of  marks  three  deep,  etched 
crudely  out  upon  the  four  walls  of  that  "up- 
per room" — and  every  seventh  mark  was  a 
cross. 

And  there  were  Christians  in  those  moun- 
tains. 


VI 
THE  LOOSENED  GRIP 

UT,"  I  began,  "you  simply  must 
tell  me  another  devil  story — one 
with  a  different  sort  of  ending,  you 
know." 

It  was  in  the  sun  parlor  at  the  Theological 
Professor's  house  again,  and  I  was  lazying 
in  the  steamer  chair. 

"I  simply  can't  write  that  story  down, 
Lady  Dear,  and  leave  the  folks  who  read  it 
with  such  a  taste,  so  to  speak,  in  their  men- 
tal mouths.  I  mean,  isn't  there  another 
story  where  we — that  is,  the  woman,  instead 
of  the  devil — wins  out?  I'm  sure  there  is 
one!" 

And  so  she  told  me — though  really  it  was 
her  little  Bible  Woman's  adventure,  and  it 
happened  just  as  I  shall  be  writing  it  down 
for  you. 

Siok-leng — which  being  interpreted  means 

84 


THE  LOOSENED  GRIP  85 

"Pure  White  Lily" — was  the  name  of  the 
Bible  Woman.  Indeed  she  seemed  quite  the 
embodiment  of  her  name  too,  as  she  moved 
about  through  the  filthy  mazes  of  the  river 
villages.  Like  a  lily  of  spotless  whiteness 
she  seemed  among  the  other  women,  in  these 
places  of  odor  and  squalor  and  unsightly, 
hidden  things  her  very  spiritual  reach  lifting 
her  out  and  beyond  them.  In  a  vague,  won- 
dering way  the  village  women  knew  this — 
though  had  you  asked  them  the  why  of  their 
almost  subconscious  perception  about  Siok- 
leng's  superiority,  they  could  not  have  told 
you. 

A  little  way  into  this  world  of  better  things 
she  had  inducted  some  of  them  when  once  or 
twice  a  year  she  sampanned  down  the  river 
and  sojourned  for  a  space  within  those  fetid, 
crowded,  nauseous  places.  It  was  while 
upon  such  an  annual  or  semiannual  errand 
that  there  happened  the  adventure  of  which 
I  am  telling  you. 

A  boy  who  might  have  turned  fifteen  had 
politely  approached  Siok-leng  as  she  was  re- 
placing her  Bible  and  hymn  book  in  the  silk 


86        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

bag  which  her  own  fingers  had  lovingly  em- 
broidered as  befitted  the  reliquary  of  such 
holy  things.  The  women  to  whom  just  a 
moment  before  she  had  been  talking  had  dis- 
persed like  a  flock  of  noisily  chattering  crows, 
and  the  little  Bible  Woman  had  fetched  a 
long  sigh  of  relief  for  very  tiredness. 

The  lad,  immaculate  in  his  clean  blue 
gown,  his  hair  sleekily  glistening  like  the 
polished  black  wood  of  his  own  hills,  had 
most  punctiliously  made  his  politeness  and 
gravely  inquired  if  the  honorable  guest  from 
up  the  river  were,  as  he  had  heard  reported, 
a  Person  of  the  Jesus  Doctrine  ? 

There  may  be  persons  so  designated  in  the 
world  who  hesitate  to  boldly  make  the  ac- 
knowledgment, but  not  to  this  division  of  the 
faint-of-heart  belonged  Siok-leng.  It  was 
because  of  the  unhesitating  affirmative  of  her 
answer  that  presently  she  was  being  jostled 
through  the  noisy  confusion  of  the  crowds 
in  the  streets  on  her  way  to  visit  the  sick 
mother  of  her  blue-coated  conductor.  The 
section  of  the  village  toward  which  they  went 
was  quieter  than  the  streets  with  which  she 


THE  LOOSENED  GRIP  87 

was  familiar,  and  the  Bible  Woman  could 
not  but  wonder,  toward  the  end  of  their  go- 
ing, at  house  after  house  in  the  neighborhood 
standing  silent  and  deserted.  Later  on  she 
was  to  find  out  the  reason  for  this. 

An  outer  gate  was  opened  presently  by  the 
lad,  and  a  moment  later  Siok-leng  stood  in 
the  guest  room  of  a  Chinese  house  and  was 
being  greeted  with  gentle  graciousness  by  the 
fragile-looking  little  mother  of  the  boy  with 
whom  she  had  come. 

The  watermelon  seeds  were  passed,  and 
then  when  the  boy  had  slipped  out,  and  the 
women  wrere  alone,  between  sips  of  fragrant 
jassamine  tea  from  tiny  cups,  the  tragic 
story  of  the  misfortune  which  had  befallen 
that  household  was  told. 

The  fragile  little  woman,  according  to  her 
own  avowment,  was  in  the  controlling  grip, 
dire  and  complete,  of  demons.  Their  first 
frightful  invasion  was  entirely  unannounced, 
the  uncanny  horde,  led  by  one  whom  she 
called  "The  Prince  of  Devils,"  having 
swarmed  in  upon  her  as  she  sat  alone  in  her 
house  one  awful  night  twelve  years  before. 


88        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

So  quiet  and  sane  was  the  recital  of  her 
hostess,  so  calmly  she  told  of  the  horrid  de- 
tails of  the  torturing  nocturnal  visits,  so  cold 
grew  the  little  hand  which  Siok-leng  held  in 
hers,  that  all  her  heart  went  out  to  the  pitiful 
victim. 

The  demons  had  come  literally  swarming 
into  her  house,  so  she  told  the  Bible  Woman 
— such  legions  of  them  that  there  was  not 
sufficient  room  in  all  the  house  to  hold  them. 
Even  she  told  Siok-leng  of  their  hideous 
bodies,  and  bulging  eyes,  and  long  claws 
which  opened  and  shut  as  though  eager  for 
prey.  Altogether  they  were  unspeakably  ter- 
rible. And  some,  she  said,  were  handsome 
devils — really  handsome ! 

Such  an  one  was  he,  their  "Prince,"  who 
snatched  her  about  the  waist  and  hissed  into 
her  ear  that  she  must  dance  with  him.  At 
that  she  tried  to  shrink  even  farther  away 
from  his  hot  body,  for  she  was  a  decent,  high- 
class  Chinese  woman,  and  such  women  do 
not  dance.  And  then  tighter  and  tighter  did 
he  grip  her,  and  wilder  and  wilder  grew  the 
mad  whirlings,  until,  lifting  the  slight  little 


THE  LOOSENED  GRIP  89 

body  from  the  floor,  her  hellish  torturer 
swung  her  upon  her  own  tea  table  and  com- 
manded her  to  sing. 

"And  I  sang,  and  I  screamed  aloud,  like 
the  wild  thing  they  had  driven  me  to  be,"  the 
weary  voice  of  the  narrator  went  on,  "until 
the  neighborhood  could  hear  my  ravings  and 
came  rushing  in,  while  this  whole  end  of  the 
village  was  in  an  uproar.  With  the  coming 
of  the  people  the  hordes  of  demons  fled  away 
with  shrieking  laughter — only,  every  night 
for  twelve  long  years  they  have  returned  to 
torture  me — and  I  am  tired — tired." 

Gradually  the  nearby  families  left  the 
neighborhood,  being  very  much  afraid  when 
in  the  night  they  could  hear  those  ravings. 

The  Bible  Woman  remembered  the  silent, 
empty  houses  past  which  her  guide  had  led 
her  not  one  hour  since.  To  her  now  they 
spote  mutely  of  the  tangible  outworking  of 
fear,  as  a  force  in  the  lives  of  the  people  of 
her  race. 

Very  diligently  too  had  the  head  of  the 
house  gone  about  securing  relief  for  his  little 
lady  wife.  She  was  the  mother  of  his  son, 


90        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

and,  besides,  he  loved  her.  Many  an  idol 
shrine  had  been  enriched  by  his  gifts,  many  a 
priest  made  to  chuckle  over  the  silver  he  hid 
in  his  sleeve — but  all  to  no  end.  The  ghoul- 
ish visitants  of  the  night  still  defied  barred 
doors,  and  with  great  fury  they  violated  that 
house. 

Strange  news  had  lately  trickled  through 
to  the  afflicted  family,  concerning  the  woman 
from  down  the  river  who  was  known  as  a 
"Person  of  the  Jesus  Doctrine,"  and  who 
daily  taught  the  women  of  the  village,  and 
even  went  from  house  to  house  telling  what 
the  people  were  calling  the  "Good  News." 
It  was  with  the  fervent  hope  that  this  Jesus 
God,  a  new  deity  in  that  community  pan- 
theon, and  about  whom  Siok-leng  seemed  to 
know  much,  might  outdo,  in  a  contest  of 
strength,  the  malevolent  disturbers  of  their 
peace,  that  the  family  had  importuned  the 
coming  of  the  Bible  Woman. 

Very  carefully,  very  prayerfully  then,  did 
Siok-leng,  sitting  there,  holding  the  cold  lit- 
tle hand  of  the  woman  beside  her,  tell  how 
that  while  she  herself  had  no  power  over  the 


THE  LOOSENED  GRIP  91 

evil  things  of  the  night,  he  who  was  her 
God  was  stronger  than  all  the  strong  devils 
that  had  poured  forth  from  hell  to  lash  her 
into  frenzy.  It  was  he  who  could  deliver  her 
from  their  thrall.  She  spoke  very  solemnly 
that  word,  but  also  she  spoke  words  concern- 
ing the  conditions  upon  which  only  that  God, 
never  heard  of  by  her  before,  could  properly 
be  entreated  to  come  to  that  house. 

Certainly  he,  the  only  and  all-powerful 
One,  would  tolerate  the  presence  there  of  no 
other  gods!  All  the  idols  must  be  taken 
down  from  the  shelf.  If  anywhere  in  all  the 
house,  even  in  the  darkest,  most  secret 
corner,  there  was  hidden  the  smallest,  most 
insignificant  god — yes,  or  even  a  most 
precious  one — out  it  must  come  into  the  light 
of  day  and  go  to  its  destruction  with  all  these 
others  which  must  be  burned  out  there  in  the 
courtyard  of  Heaven's  Well  with  an  utter 
and  complete  burning.  All  this  did  Siok- 
leng  say. 

When  the  woman's  eager  assent  was  reg- 
istered, also  that  of  the  father  of  her  son, 
and  of  that  blue-coated  light-of-the-eyes-of- 


92        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

his-parents  himself,  then  a  great  smoke  of 
burning  idols  arose  from  the  courtyard  of 
that  dwelling,  while  the  idol  shelves  in  their 
erstwhile  most  honorable  place  yawned 
empty  like  a  toothless  mouth. 

The  menacing  deities  having  been  dis- 
patched into  the  realm  of  such  departed 
things  upon  the  smoke  of  their  consuming, 
then  did  Siok-leng  begin  her  teachings  of 
very  sacred  and  fundamental,  yet  withal  very 
simple,  things  in  the  genesis  of  the  establish- 
ment in  that  house  of  faith  in  the  Doctrine. 

Also  Siok-leng  opened  to  that  anxious 
family  the  Holy  Classic,  through  \vhich  was 
revealed  to  them  that  kindly  divine  Physi- 
cian who,  when  in  the  long  ago  he  walked 
the  ways  of  men,  out  of  poor  tortured  folk 
like  the  mother  of  this  house  had  cast  many 
devils.  Because  these  noisome  things  knew 
how  futile  was  their  case  in  combat  with  his 
great  power  they  did  not  even  try  to  answer 
back.  There  could  be  no  answer  to  him,  the 
Bible  Woman  told  them. 

Also  Siok-leng  taught  the  eager  woman, 
now  trembling  with  a  great  hopefulness  that 


THE  LOOSENED  GRIP  93 

her  salvation  was  at  hand,  a  little  prayer. 
Chinese  lips  were  saying  it  that  day,  yet  it 
was  the  same  petition  which  universal  hu- 
manity through  the  years  and  under  the 
stress  of  its  burden  has  syllabled  more  often 
than  any  other — "Lord,  save  me."  Indeed, 
it  was  this  simple  prayer  which,  should  the 
demon  intruders  come  that  night,  was  to  be 
upon  the  lips  of  their  harried  victim,  a  most 
holy  and  effectual  talisman. 

"If  they  come  to-night,"  Siok-leng  care- 
fully admonished  the  woman,  "at  the  very 
first  sight  or  sound  of  them,  kneel  down 
quickly  upon  the  floor,  lift  up  your  head 
boldly,  and  your  arms,  and  cry  out  this 
prayer  to  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  more  powerful 
alone  than  all  the  devils  in  hell,  and  they  will 
leave  you.  Certainly  they  will  go.  Have 
no  fear.  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  they 
must  go." 

So,  praying  for  peace  upon  that  house,  the 
Bible  Woman  went  her  way  back  to  her 
lodging.  Only  first  she  assured  the  family 
that  should  they  for  any  reason  desire  her 
during  the  night,  her  glad  feet  would  bring 


94        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

her  to  them.  And  for  long  hours  through 
that  night  Siok-leng  prayed.  In  the  behalf 
of  a  suffering  woman  she  prayed  that  ef- 
fectual prayer  which  "changes  things." 

The  azalea  flowers — that  "all-over-the- 
mountain-red,"  which  splashes  with  gor- 
geous color  the  hills  of  southern  China — 
were  shaking  the  dews  of  the  night  from 
their  flaunting  pennants — and  the  young 
spring  was  laughing  out  loud  in  the  golden 
sunshine  when,  very  early  in  the  morning, 
Siok-leng  sped  out  to  that  erstwhile  house 
of  sorrow  upon  the  fringes  of  the  little  vil- 
lage. 

The  outside  gate  stood  ajar  as  though  in 
wide-hearted  welcome,  and  an  instant  later 
she  stood  inside  the  guest  room,  where  only 
a  few  hours  ago  she  had  held  the  cold  little 
hands  of  a  soul-weary  woman.  She  noted 
that  the  empty  idol  shelves  had  been  heaped 
with  glowing  red  azaleas — and  she  won- 
dered. 

She  wondered  no  longer  when  into  the 
guest  room  came  unfalteringly,  even  though 
there  lingered  a  degree  of  languor  in  her 


THE  LOOSENED  GRIP  95 

movement,  that  woman  who  for  twelve  long 
years  had  been  veritably  a  woman  of  great 
sorrows.  Very  gently  she  came  toward  her 
guest,  her  face  raised  and  shining  as  with  a 
radiance  not  earthly,  and  withal  overspread 
with  a  great  peace. 

"Yes,  they  came,"  she  answered  the  eager 
interrogation  of  the  Bible  Woman.  "Oh,  yes, 
they  came !"  And  there  were  more  than  had 
ever  before  swarmed  through  her  doorway, 
and  they  jeered  and  mocked  and  laughed  as 
though  to  terrorize  her,  and  conquer  her  by 
their  very  onslaught  of  hideous  noise ! 

But  something,  so  she  said,  had  blocked 
them,  where  their  fiery  breath  was  almost 
close  enough  to  scorch  and  wither  her.  She 
had  slid  from  her  chair  to  her  knees  there 
upon  the  floor,  as  Siok-leng  had  expressly 
instructed  her,  but  now  as  the  hateful  horde 
advanced,  and  in  her  soul  she  knew  that  the 
ultimate  crisis  was  at  hand,  almost  her 
leaden  arms  refused  to  be  lifted  up — almost 
some  awful  magnetism  from  below  chained 
her  suffering  face  to  the  earth — almost  her 
voice  as  she  essayed  to  pray,  that  prayer, 


g6        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

"Lord,  save  me,"  seemed  drowned  by  the 
sound  of  her  own  pounding  heart  as  well  as 
by  demon  shriekings. 

In  that  final  moment  though,  it  was  Siok- 
leng's  pure  strong  face  which  visualized  it- 
self for  a  moment  before  her  frenzied  vision. 
Very  clearly  in  her  awful  extremity,  so  she 
afterward  said,  it  was  the  sound  of  Siok- 
leng's  calm,  convincing  voice  saying,  even  as 
she  herself  had  heard  her  say  that  very  day : 
"Certainly  they  will  go !  Have  no  fear.  In 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  they  must  go!" 
And  as  her  own  voice  confidently  arose  above 
the  demon  din,  even  before  the  little  prayer 
was  finished,  they  did  go ! 

And  there  was  great  peace  upon  that 
dwelling,  which  was  never  again  in  all  the 
years  that  followed  a  House  of  Sorrow,  but  a 
House  of  Joy. 


VII 
THE  BANDIT  TRAIL 

HEN  we  left  home  our  program  did 
not  include  a  jaunt  through  the 
bandit  country.  But,  thanks  to 
favoring  circumstances  when  we 

reached  the  Middle  Kingdom,  neither  did  it 

preclude  such  a  feature. 

O,  it's  great  to  go  a- jaunting, 

Where  a  program  doesn't  bind  you, 

And  if  adventure  you're  a-wanting, 
Cast  your  bait  and  one  will  find  you. 

Not  that  we  absolutely  courted  adventure, 
of  course,  but  when  it  came  our  way  at  the 
beck  of  a  willing  mind,  we  did  not  sidestep  it. 
Certainly  we  didn't!  This  particular  un- 
usual happening  came  about  through  a  visit 
to  us  while  we  lingered  in  the  Happy  Valley 
of  two  missionary  folk  from  up  river.  They 
certainly  had  what  Friend  Chesterton  would 
designate  "personality,"  those  two!  At 
97 


98        THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

least  that  is  how  I  account  for  our  ready 
promise  to  them  of  a  return  visit  back  where 
they  told  us  they  lived — "Back  in  the  moun- 
tains in  the  bandit  country,  where  you  can't 
go  any  farther." 

Now,  the  jumping-off  place  had  always 
had  an  enticing  sound  to  my  adventurous 
soul,  and  "where  you  can't  go  any  farther" 
was  its  equivalent.  But  "bandits" !  That 
"sold"  the  proposition  to  me  and — well,  we 
went.  The  journey  took  us  again  far  up  the 
stately  old  Ming,  in  the  same  old  houseboat 
poled  by  the  same  old  crew.  The  whole  dis- 
tance covered  was  only  a  matter  of  a  hun- 
dred miles  each  way.  But  when,  including 
a  stay  of  a  couple  of  days  at  your  destination, 
the  going  takes  you  ten  days,  and  means 
houseboat  and  sampan,  mountain  chairs,  and 
much  of  the  time  your  own  good  feet — be- 
cause there  isn't  a  mile  of  railroad  in  the 
province — one  feels  quite  traveled  when  once 
more  he  is  back  in  the  Happy  Valley. 

The  voyage  started  auspiciously,  and  all 
went  well  for  a  few  hours.  Then  the  skipper 
balked.  He  ran  the  houseboat  over  shore- 


TPIE  BANDIT  TRAIL  99 

ward  upon  the  very  edge  of  a  sand  bar  and 
absolutely  refused  to  make  the  craft  "walk" 
a  pole's  length  farther.  The  little  lady  who 
runs  a  big  industrial  work  for  friendless  Chi- 
nese widows  down  the  river,  was  our  be- 
loved personal  conductor  along  this  bandit 
trail,  and  although  most  politely  she  urged 
the  dower-faced  captain  to  resume  the  chan- 
nel immediately,  she  was  politely,  but  I 
thought  a  bit  scornfully,  refused.  Then  the 
Personal  Conductor  scolded  in  her  best  and 
most  forceful  Chinese,  only  to  be  as  em- 
phatically, even  noisily,  informed  that  the 
boat  would  not  "walk." 

The  reason?  Perfectly  simple.  Had  not 
the  skipper  told  Cing-Soi,  the  foreign 
woman's  houseman,  when  he  bargained  for 
the  boat,  that  in  the  contract  there  must  be 
the  furnishing  of  one  indispensable  item  by 
the  foreigners  themselves? 

Now  the  bargain  as  made  was  that  our 
party  of  five  was  to  pay  an  aggregate  amount 
of  three  dollars  per  day  which  covered  the 
entire  expense  for  all  of  us,  save  that  for 
food  and  bedding.  The  latter  we  must  pro- 


ioo      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

vide.  But  the  indispensable  "something" 
without  which  the  skipper  would  not  allow 
his  craft  to  be  poled  another  stroke — "What 
was  it?"  urged  the  missionary. 

Then  it  came  out,  the  statement  of  this 
astounding  omission  of  us  most  negligent 
foreigners,  which  proved  to  be — the  Amer- 
ican flag — nothing  less.  Shades  of  Betsy 
Ross — and  this  was  China !  Our  skipper 
proceeded  to  elaborate  his  point.  Did  not 
the  honorable  but  careless  foreign  guests 
know  that  they  were  embarked  upon  a  some- 
what questionable  voyage  which  would  carry 
them  through  the  very  heart  of  the  bandit 
country?  Also  were  they  not  aware  that 
the  Chinese  flag  (when  this  protection  was 
mildly  suggested  by  one  of  us  imbecile  for- 
eigners) would  but  invite  the  confiscation  of 
the  houseboat,  should  the  bandits  in  their 
maraudings  around  spy  us  from  the  shore? 
Absolutely,  the  Flowery  Flag  would  be  but 
as  a  painted  rag  in  the  eyes  of  the  buccaneers. 
In  fact,  what  the  skipper  said,  all  of  which  is 
too  voluminous  to  record,  was  that  were  we 
to  persist  against  his  advice,  we  might  as 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  101 

well  order  our  coffins — or,  as  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  its  American  equivalent,  "Noth- 
ing doing,"  and  he  meant  it  too. 

Then,  as  often  happens,  in  the  very  mo- 
ment of  despair  came  inspiration.  Came  the 
vision  of  a  church  in  Boston,  back  home — a 
million  miles  away  it  seemed  that  morning 
— a  church  crowded  to  the  doors  with  mis- 
sionary pilgrims.  Came  also  the  memory  of 
one  face  in  the  throng — of  a  silken  flag  sent 
forward  with  the  loving  urge  that  it  be  the 
talisman  upon  the  long  trail  which  one  in 
that  Sabbath  day  multitude  was  about  to 
begin. 

It  was  this  flag,  then,  which,  sewed  by 
eager  fingers  to  a  stair  rod,  one  of  the  three 
holding  down  a  bit  of  matting  on  the  diminu- 
tive stairs  leading  from  cabin  to  deck,  was  in 
a  real  American  jiffy  flying  bravely  from  the 
stern  of  our  craft.  Most  devoutly  did  we 
thank  Heaven  as  well  as  the  generous  heart 
of  the  donor  of  that  blessed  bit  of  silk  that 
its  proportions  were  sufficiently  ample  to 
splash  the  sunshine  with  color  enough  to  be 
seen  from  the  shore. 


IO2      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

The  effect  of  this  improvised  flag  raising 
was  instantaneous.  The  skipper  emerged 
from  surliness  to  serenity,  from  scowls  to 
smiles.  The  coolies  stripped  off  their 
patched  jackets  and  reached  for  their  poles. 
The  very  eyes  of  our  boat  bulged  with  be- 
nignity as,  to  the  weird  crooning  of  our  boat- 
men's song,  we  once  more  cut  the  upstream 
current. 

That  was  one  unique  cruise,  let  me  tell 
you!  There  was  a  world  of  folk  upon  the 
river.  The  women  of  the  sampans,  their 
floating  domiciles  drawn  for  purposes  of 
house-cleaning  upon  occasional  stretches  of 
sandy  beach,  were  conducting  vigorous  cam- 
paigns of  scrubbing.  Cunning  pig-tailed 
kiddies  frolicked  on  the  sands,  while  fat  little 
babies,  securely  anchored  to  the  boats  by 
ropes  tied  about  their  middles,  made  frantic 
efforts  to  fall  off  and  get  drowned.  Every 
sort  of  weird-looking  craft  which  could  be 
conjured  by  one's  imagination,  or  dreamed  of 
by  a  poet,  or  sung  about  by  a  singer,  floated 
past  us  on  its  way  to  the  sea.  There  were 
great  brown  sails,  like  the  outspread  wings 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  103 

of  some  huge,  impossible  bird.  There  were 
tattered,  ragged  ones  and  others,  white  once, 
now  gray,  splotched  with  blue  patches — the 
color  in  which  all  China  clothes  itself.  There 
were  silent,  mysterious  craft  which  passed 
us,  and  others  from  which  peered  out  cu- 
rious but  kindly  faces.  The  family  wash, 
consisting  inevitably  and  unvaryingly  of  blue 
coats  and  trousers,  flew  with  animation  from 
the  bamboo  poles,  upon  which,  across  some 
quarter  of  many  boats  it  was  hung,  or, 
rather,  impaled,  since  clothespins  were 
minus. 

It  was  a  journey  which  took  us  through 
the  tumultuous  upper  reaches  of  the  Ming, 
one  to  prove  the  mettle  of  our  boatmen  and 
the  poise  of  our  own  nerves.  Gigantic  rocks 
and  bowlders,  as  well  as  hidden  and  danger- 
ous reefs,  here  strew  the  river  bed,  while  the 
rushing  waters,  maddened  at  the  obstruc- 
tions in  their  seaward  course,  plunge  franti- 
cally at  the  houseboat  as  though  to  tear  it  to 
atoms.  No  crew  could  pole  against  such 
frenzied  force,  and  alone  steer  our  craft 
around  the  jagged  horn  of  a  rock  of  immense 


IO4      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

bulk  which  thrust  itself  outward  as  though 
to  gore  our  prow. 

Time  and  time  again  they  attempted  it,  to 
fail  as  often,  every  new  venture  sending  our 
poor  little  boat  back  again  downstream  far 
beyond  the  point  where  the  last  fresh  start 
was  made.  The  whole  effort  finally  ended 
with  half  our  crew,  harnessed  with  ropes 
which  were  firmly  fastened  to  the  boat, 
crawling  across  the  rocks  to  the  shore.  Once 
there,  bent,  like  beasts,  upon  all  fours,  they 
crept  along  the  mountainside,  and  with  the 
terrific  poling  of  the  straining,  sweating, 
yelling  coolies  on  the  houseboat  we  finally 
rounded  the  point  and  glided  peacefully  into 
the  placid  waters  of  the  channel. 

While  all  these  noisy  nautical  maneuvers 
were  in  process  I  saw  creeping  along  the 
precipitous  sides  of  the  mountainous  shore, 
fairly  in  the  wake  of  our  straining  crew,  a 
little  blue-coated,  blue-trousered  woman. 
The  memory  of  her  will  always  prick  at  my 
heart.  She  too  was  creeping  upon  hands 
and  feet,  and  harnessed  about  her  shoulders 
was  the  cable  pulled  taut  from  its  fastening 


Photographed  liy  the  author 

THE  STRUGGLING  BIT  OF  FEMININITY  ON 
THE  SHORE 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  105 

to  the  big  lumber  sampan,  which  behind  us 
had  all  day  been  making  its  slow  course  up- 
stream. 

To  some  mother's  heart  back  in  baby  days 
she  might  have  been  "Fragrant  Flower"  or 
"Thousand  Gold" — I  do  not  know.  Probably 
to  the  very  boat  she  was  pulling,  as  in  some 
sheltered  harbor  it  lay  near  the  great  city 
below,  she  was  carried  one  day  a  bride  in  her 
red  chair.  Perhaps  from  under  its  bamboo 
cover  in  the  dark  of  some  night  had  trem- 
bled the  feeble  wail  of  the  first  baby  she  had 
cuddled  next  to  her  heart.  Others  had  come 
afterward;  we  could  see  several  sturdy 
youngsters  playing  upon  the  diminutive  rear 
deck  while  an  implacable-looking  old  mother- 
in-law  squatted  in  solid  comfort,  with  her  to- 
bacco pipe  in  her  hands. 

Forward  on  the  boat,  owner  and  overlord 
of  all  he  surveyed,  stood  the  head  of  this 
floating  residence,  a  stalwart  Chinese  man. 
With  raucous  voice  and  angry  gesticulation 
he  was  shouting  directions  to  that  little, 
despised,  creeping  thing  upon  the  shore,  his 
wife,  whose  little  brown  shoulders  were  raw 


io6      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

under  the  chafing  of  the  rope,  as  upon  all 
fours  she  strained  to  the  killing  point,  as  she 
tugged  the  sampan  through  that  frantic  cur- 
rent. 

My  soul  turned  sick  within  me  as,  fasci- 
nated with  the  very  tragedy  of  it  all,  I  stared 
wide-eyed  at  the  struggling  bit  of  femininity 
on  the  shore,  until,  our  own  boat  rounding  a 
turn  in  the  river,  it  was  lost  to  my  vision. 
But  to  me  for  always  that  Daughter  of 
Cathay,  bearing  not  only  her  rightful 
burden  of  wifehood  and  motherhood,  but  the 
back-breaking  load  of  an  all  but  impossible 
manual  task,  must  symbolize  the  woman- 
hood of  the  world  where  Christ  is  not.  In 
the  name  of  the  Eternal  Equities  can  it  be 
possible  that  the  women  of  America  shall 
always  have  so  much,  and  those  of  the  Orient 
90  little  of  that  which  makes  life  radiant  ? 

But  it  is  near  the  end  of  our  second  day  out 
and  the  sun  declines.  With  the  last  of  its 
gold  it  sets  a  crown  upon  the  mountaintops, 
and  fuses  into  gorgeous  carmine  the  azaleas 
which  splash  their  slopes.  For  it  is  azalea 
time  in  China,  and  one  entirely  ceases  to 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  107 

wonder  why  the  character  which  designates 
the  brilliant  blossom  translated  literally 
"  All-over-the-mountain-red. " 

If  there  be  a  question  in  your  mind  as  to 
China's  claim  to  being  the  "Flowery  King- 
dom" just  take  the  Bandit  Trail  in  May 
through  the  mountains  to  Kucheng.  Young 
spring  had  tripped  that  way  a  day  or  two 
before  us,  and  she  had  spilled  her  flower  bas- 
ket. There  were  long,  white  sprays  of  bridal 
wreath,  and  a  fragrant  network  of  wild 
honeysuckle,  clambering  over  the  green 
undergrowth. 

A  single  bloom  of  that  shower  of  briar 
roses  could  not  have  been  covered  by  one  of 
your  grandmother's  flaring  teacups — which 
you  will  term  exaggeration,  but  which,  upon 
my  word,  is  not.  The  pear  flowers  scattered 
their  petals  like  snowflakes  upon  our  heads, 
and  wide-eyed  blue  violets  looked  out  from 
the  green  lacery  of  ferns.  Wild  strawberries 
promised  a  luscious  find  to  some  subsequent 
wayfarer,  and  the  pampas-grass  whispered 
gentle  secrets  into  our  ears  as  we  passed. 

The  watery  surface  of  the  paddy  fields  was 


io8      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

beginning  to  show  a  sheen  of  pale  jade  green, 
and  the  feathery  fronds  of  the  tall  bamboos 
were  joyously  bending  under  the  sweet 
breath  of  the  wind.  Somewhere  in  those 
mountains  through  which  we  trekked  that 
day  in  our  swinging  chairs  the  spring  sat 
enthroned.  We  walked  her  path,  we  almost 
saw  the  elusive  young  thing  herself. 

But  remember  this  was  also  the  Bandit 
Trail,  and  the  very  stones  which  paved  it 
had  only  a  few  months  before  run  red  with 
blood.  Again  and  again  our  shouts  to  each 
other  were  stilled,  as  our  caravan  filed  si- 
lently, Indian  fashion,  through  the  desolate 
ruins  of  once  thriving  villages.  Nothing 
now  remained  of  them  but  charred  and  crum- 
bling walls,  over  which  even  in  so  brief  a 
time  and,  as  if  to  cover  their  wounds,  kindly 
Mother  Nature  was  throwing  a  garment  of 
softest  green. 

The  uprising  of  the  bandits,  wrhose  per- 
sonnel included  ex-soldiers,  and  even  men 
who  were  themselves  mountain  men,  had 
been  widespread  and  violent.  Masquerading 
under  the  patriotic  cloak  of  "Love  of  Coun- 


Fhotogr:i plied  by  the  author 

"THE  FEATHERY  FRONDS  OF  THE  TALL 
BAMBOOS" 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  109 

try,"  the  name  by  which  they  designated  their 
order,  they  mustered  their  legions  by  thou- 
sands, declared  death  to  all  officials  and  if 
refused  tribute  money  by  the  villages,  looted, 
murdered,  and  burned. 

To  the  big  walled  city  down  in  the  plain 
during  that  veritable  reign  of  terror  fled 
thousands  of  refugees  from  the  sorely  dis- 
turbed heights  round  about.  It  was  to  this 
same  city,  rising  like  an  enchanted  island 
from  a  sea  of  green,  and  etched  out  of  a 
golden  sunset,  which  gladdened  our  eyes  as 
our  coolies  swung  down  the  last  descent,  and 
we  knew  that  we  beheld  the  end  of  the  trail. 
But  not  half  so  much  did  the  sight  of  the  city 
gladden  our  eyes  as  did  another.  Finally 
down  the  last  mountainside  we  in  our  chairs, 
now  grown  hard  in  the  long  going,  wound 
past  a  living  streamer  of  blue — a  human 
streamer — made  up  of  hundreds  of  school- 
boys, immaculate  in  their  clean  blue  cotton 
gowns,  who  with  their  professors,  dignified 
beyond  expression  and  quite  as  kindly,  had 
gathered  there  to  give  us  welcome.  Outside 
the  city  gate  were  assembled  the  girls  in  quite 


no      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

as  imposing  a  line  of  their  own,  while  behind 
them  grouped  the  older  women  from  the 
Bible  Training  School.  It  was  the  girls  too, 
I  love  to  remember,  who  gave  us  that 
thrilling  firecracker  salute!  Firecrackers! 
After  China  no  worldly  welcome  for  me,  I 
fear,  can  ever  be  quite  complete  without 
their  noisy  heartsomeness. 

The  Doctor,  however,  in  the  Mission 
House  on  the  hill  was  the  spellbinder,  who 
away  into  the  wee  hours  held  us  enthralled 
with  stories  of  the  bandits.  For  let  me  tell 
you  this  Doctor — and  his  was  a  double  title, 
by  the  way,  attained  by  the  medical  as  well  as 
the  theological  route — had  had  more  than 
one  "close-up"  with  these  Gentlemen  of  the 
Greenwood.  As  a  skillful  surgeon  and  physi- 
cian in  his  own  hospital  as  also  among  the 
poor  in  their  own  wretched  dwellings  he  was 
known  to  all  who  lived  in  that  section  of  the 
province. 

As  shepherd  of  the  flock  in  the  fold  of  the 
church  with  a  cross  on  its  spire  down  in  the 
teeming  city,  and  upon  occasions,  the  itiner- 
ating preacher  who  had  found  his  way  into 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  in 

many  of  those  "other  villages,"  his  name  was 
hallowed  in  a  thousand  homes.  It  was  this 
Doctor,  then,  who  in  the  waning  of  a  wonder- 
ful day  related  to  us  how  upon  a  certain  night 
not  so  long  before  our  coming  he  had  been 
the  guest  of  the  bandit  chief  and  his  savage 
crew  in  a  village  high  up  in  the  mountains 
and  with  no  man  of  his  own  race  near. 

All  through  those  months  of  bloody  ma- 
rauding there  was  one  fact  which  was  out- 
standing in  its  significance.  Though  death 
without  mercy  was  to  be  the  portion  of  all 
officials  luckless  enough  to  fall  into  their 
hands,  and  a  similar  fate  was  to  be  visited 
upon  the  inhabitants  of  resisting  villages,  by 
solemn  edict  of  the  bandit  chief  himself  upon 
neither  the  person  nor  the  property  of  Chris- 
tians were  violent  hands  to  be  laid.  If  there 
were  needed  convincing  proof  of  the  prac- 
tical power  of  the  Christian  faith  upon  the 
non-Christian  mind,  it  would  seem  to  be  here. 
But  with  such  protection  available  for  be- 
lievers it  followed  logically  that  just  at  that 
particular  season  the  church  both  within  the 
walled  city  and  in  the  surrounding  villages 


ii2      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

was  deluged  with  applications  from  those 
who  craved  entrance.  Verily,  to  save  one's 
life  is  worth  the  abandonment  of  even  the 
family  idols! 

But  there  was  no  "revival"  of  this  sort 
encouraged  by  the  mission  just  now.  Those 
recruiting  agencies  for  souls,  the  churches, 
except  when  regular  services  were  held,  were 
absolutely  closed,  Be  assured  that  those 
missionaries  of  ours,  the  Doctor  and  all  the 
rest,  both  to  bandit  and  brothers  are  likewise 
Apostles  of  the  Square  Deal.  For  that 
reason  there  was  displayed  upon  the  breast 
of  every  Christian  a  scrap  of  yellow,  the 
characters  upon  which  registered  his  name, 
his  church,  and  the  exact  location  of  the  lat- 
ter. As  proof  that  these  were  authentic 
facts  there  were  appended  the  name  of  the 
pastor,  the  superintendent  of  the  district,  and 
the  mission  director — the  last  being  the  Doc- 
tor himself.  The  name-roll  too  by  which 
these  established  ones  could  be  verified,  was 
not  one  of  these  nailed  to  the  door  of  every 
church  ? 

It  was  during  these  anxious  days  that  the 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  113 

Doctor,  urged  by  some  human  necessity  in 
a  distant  mountain  village,  had  taken  his 
way  there  on  foot,  accompanied  only  by  one 
of  his  students  from  the  mission  school.  The 
human  necessity  dealt  with,  the  Doctor  and 
his  aide,  having  covered  some  distance  upon 
their  homeward  way,  found  themselves  with 
evening  upon  them  still  a  matter  of  some  six- 
teen miles  from  their  objective.  More,  they 
had  thrust  upon  them  by  wayfarers  upon  the 
mountain  path  as  they  neared  this  particular 
village  the  rather  disconcerting  information 
that,  since  it  had  recently  been  appropriated 
by  the  robber  chief  and  several  hundred  of 
his  followers,  it  would  be  a  most  desirable 
locality  to  avoid. 

The  Doctor,  devoutly  wishing  that  days  in 
this  season  were  longer,  and  making  a  hasty 
but  definite  decision  to  speed  up  and  cover 
the  miles  between  him  and  home  by  morning, 
was  entirely  unafraid,  but  decidedly  dis- 
gusted, to  be  met  at  the  edge  of  the  town  by 
the  bearer  of  a  polite  invitation  from  the  big 
bandit  for  an  interview. 

Now,  several  critical  cases  in  the  hospital 


H4      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

and  some  important  parish  matters  were 
very  much  just  then  the  stronger  urge  in 
the  Doctor's  program  than  such  casual  mat- 
ters as  visits  to  bandit  chiefs.  So  with  all 
proper  politeness — no  one  could  outdo  the 
medical  man  there — he  instructed  the  runner 
to  return  to  headquarters  with  the  message 
that  the  most  unworthy  and  insignificant 
foreign  doctor  was  very  much  in  a  hurry,  and 
while  it  caused  him  great  regret  to  decline 
the  most  honorable  Chief's  gracious  invita- 
tion to  penetrate  into  his  august  seclusion, 
he  must  hasten  upon  his  way. 

On  the  two  men  from  the  valley  sped  along 
the  winding  trail  (for  the  black  night  was 
coming  down  upon  them)  only  to  be  over- 
taken in  time  by  the  second  runner.  He 
carried  a  message  like  unto  the  first,  that  the 
voice  of  the  most  exalted  foreign  Doctor 
would  be  esteemed  as  pleasantest  music  in 
the  ears  of  the  Chief,  who  begged  that  the 
honorable  Doctor  would  condescend  to  re- 
main for  the  night  under  his  own  most  un- 
worthy, if  somewhat  temporary,  roof. 

So  back  trudged  the  head  of  the  hospital  in 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  115 

the  plain,  murmuring  under  his  breath — to 
pacify  his  own  impatience  at  such  an  ex- 
hibition of  Chinese  perseverance — "After  all 
it  costs  nothing  to  be  polite."  I  have  the  Doc- 
tor's word  that  he  said  nothing  more  than 
that! 

It  was  quite  the  most  pretentious  house 
in  that  village,  now  deserted  by  all  but  the 
bandit  crew,  to  which  the  Doctor  was  con- 
ducted. Through  the  outer  gate,  across  the 
court  of  Heaven's  Well,  and  into  the  guest 
hall  he  followed  his  guide.  Then  after  be- 
ing much  kowtowed  to  by  various  bandit  dig- 
nitaries and  the  making  of  much  ceremonious 
politeness  upon  his  own  part,  into  the  most 
august  presence  of  the  worst  outlaw  in  south 
China  was  ushered  the  Doctor. 

And  the  outlaw  himself  ?  Oh,  he  was  no- 
body of  very  terrible  personal  presence,  so 
the  Doctor  told  me.  In  fact,  he  was  still  in 
his  twenties,  and  a  real  boyishness — albeit  a 
somewhat  savage  boyishness — seemed  still 
to  garment  his  personality.  That  he  had 
outstanding  indications  of  such  qualities  as 
would  make  for  crude  and  cruel  leadership 


n6      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

there  was  no  denying,  and  inwardly  the 
visitor  congratulated  himself,  as  he  was  con- 
ducted to  the  place  of  honor  at  the  right  of 
his  host  as  he  sat  upon  the  bed,  that  the  velvet 
side  of  banditry,  he  had  reason  to  believe, 
was  turned  toward  him.  The  inevitable 
watermelon  seeds,  the  tea  and  the  cakes  were 
immediately  forthcoming.  You  might  easily 
have  supposed  that  company  of  cutthroats  to 
be  perfectly  tame  and  tractable  Chinese  men 
as  with  the  Doctor,  dangling  his  legs  over 
the  side  of  the  Chinese  board  bed,  they  all, 
there  in  the  lantern  glow,  ate  their  cakes  and 
munched  their  melon  seeds  in  peace  and 
quiet.  But  no  one  could  blame  the  guest,  if 
his  imagination  led  him  (he  knowing  them 
so  well)  to  fancy  he  saw  red  blood  upon  the 
hands  that  served  him! 

It  was  after  all  formalities  and  conventions 
had  been  scrupulously  observed  and  his  per- 
sonal staff  dismissed  by  the  Chief  that  there 
was  revealed  to  the  Doctor  the  real  reason 
for  this  somewhat  forced  seance.  The  ban- 
dit stated  that  for  many  moons  he  had  had 
great  desire  to  have  words  with  the  man  who 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  117 

was  now  his  guest,  but  that  until  this  very 
night  he  had  failed  to  attain  the  desire  of  his 
heart.  It  became  evident  early  in  the  some- 
what one-sided  conversation  which  there- 
after ensued,  that  the  outlaw  was  for  some 
reason  or  other  making  very  decided  efforts 
to  meet  his  guest  on  a  positively  fraternal 
basis !  To  further  promote  his  obvious  pur- 
pose in  thus  entertaining  his  wholly  un- 
willing guest,  he  advanced  presently  the 
somewhat  astounding  argument,  that, 
though  appearances  in  proof  thereof  were 
usually  wanting,  his  conviction  was  that  the 
mission  of  Christians  and  that  of  bandits 
were  really  identical. 

The  members  of  his  army,  to  whom  he  had 
applied  the  opprobrious  titles  with  which  the 
whole  countryside  was  familiar — these  were, 
according  to  the  Chief,  honest-to-goodness 
"Love  of  Country  Men."  They  were  pa- 
triots of  the  highest  order,  bent  solely  upon 
the  uplift  of  their  fellow  men.  As  such  they 
were  entitled  to  their  living1  at  the  hands  of 
the  populace,  and,  failing  to  receive  it,  they 
were  certainly  acting  quite  within  their 


n8      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

rights  to  appropriate  by  force  that  which 
their  necessities  required. 

Were  not  the  Christians  likewise  "uplift" 
people?  Certainly  the  bandits  themselves 
recognized  them  as  such,  and  had  treated 
them  and  should  continue  to  treat  them  as 
brethren!  Was  there  not  pasted  upon  the 
wall  of  the  very  room  in  which  they  were 
then  conferring  the  list  of  rules  issued  by  the 
Chief  himself,  governing  all  bandit  proce- 
dure ?  And  would  the  honorable  Doctor  no- 
tice the  first  of  these? 

So  there  in  the  flare  of  the  primitive  lan- 
tern which  his  self-constituted  host  himself 
held  high,  the  Doctor  read  in  Chinese  char- 
acters : 

"To  any  man  killing  a  Christian  or  burn- 
ing or  injuring  a  Christian  church — death." 

All  of  this,  you  have  surmised,  was  leading 
up  to  something,  and  the  big  Chief's  particu- 
lar cat  was  now  out  of  the  bag.  The  big 
Chief,  that  most  bloody  and  terrifying  some- 
body in  the  whole  province,  wanted — to  build 
a  church!  He  stated  his  convictions  and 
made  his  proposition  very  clearly  and,  the 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  119 

Doctor  assured  me,  almost  eagerly.  His 
convictions  were  that  churches  were  good, 
and  made  for  the  uplift  of  the  community. 
So  were  Christians.  After  the  present  un- 
rest in  the  mountains  had  settled  down  a  bit 
he  himself  very  much  desired  a  church  in 
his  own  village.  In  fact,  so  earnestly  did 
his  heart  desire  such  a  consummation  that  he, 
being  possessed  with  a  fair  share  of  this 
world's  goods — that  he  himself  would  con- 
tribute the  plot  of  ground  upon  which  the 
church  should  be  builded.  To  bring  about 
his  heart's  desire  he  would  go  even  further 
— he  would  furnish  all  the  necessary  funds 
that  the  walls  might  be  raised  and  the  build- 
ing completed.  All  this  time  this  polite  cut- 
throat had  himself  conducted  the  major  por- 
tion of  the  conversation.  Now  he  waited 
for  his  guest  to  speak. 

You  may  conjure  up  the  picture  to  your 
own  satisfaction.  The  Doctor,  high  up  in  a 
mountain  village  almost  on  the  edge  of  the 
world,  the  enforced  guest  of  the  man  at  the 
beck  of  whose  finger  villages  had  gone  up  in 
smoke,  treasures  were  looted,  and  hundreds 


I2O      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

of  innocent  folk  come  to  their  deaths !  And 
it  was  this  man  of  blood,  surrounded  by 
three  hundred  or  more  of  his  kind,  the  most 
hated,  the  most  feared  in  a  province,  who 
was  proposing  to  a  lone  missionary  in  a  hovel 
on  a  mountaintop  at  midnight,  to  build  a 
Christian  church ! 

I  think  I  should  have  liked  to  see  the 
Doctor  just  then.  He  was  a  Manxman  be- 
fore ever  he  had  won  a  degree  and  his  hair 
had  a  dash  of  red  in  its  fiber — and  mayhap, 
also  his  temper.  At  any  rate  he  warmed  up 
considerably,  albeit  his  eyes  held  a  twinkle 
as  he  outlined  the  potential  proportions  of 
the  bandit  chief's  proposition.  To  begin 
with,  it  was  evidently  the  purpose  of  this 
adroit  marauder  to  attempt  to  stage  a  come- 
back into  peaceful  pursuits  of  life.  It  may 
have  been  that  down  in  some  musty  corner 
of  his  heart  there  remained  one  good  impulse 
which  was  prompting  him  to  make  amends  in 
the  sight  of  the  people,  and  while  the  time 
seemed  opportune,  for  his  career  of  murder 
and  crime.  A  church  would  furnish  tangible 
evidence  of  a  change  of  heart.  The  accom- 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  121 

plishment  of  his  plan  would  go  a  long  way 
toward  establishing  him  in  the  good  graces 
of  the  public. 

But  to  the  Doctor,  sitting  there  in  state 
on  the  bed  beside  the  bandit,  there  was  quite 
a  different  aspect  to  this  church-building 
proposition.  While  it  was  altogether  de- 
sirable that  the  Chief  should  mend  his  ways, 
a  church  which  should  stand  as  a  monument 
to  such  transformation  would  be  plainly 
undesirable.  Certain  it  is  that  to  most  of 
the  community  it  would  have  been  substan- 
tial evidence  that  gross  sins  could  be  atoned 
for  by  very  material  means.  The  priests  in 
their  temples  were  telling  them  the  same 
thing.  Then  the  Doctor  didn't  particularly 
care  to  start  the  "one-man  church"  in  China. 
The  present  proposition  would  result,  if  ac- 
cepted, not  solely  in  a  "one-man  church," 
which  of  a  certainty  such  a  one  would  be, 
but  a  bandit-bossed  church  at  that !  Many  of 
the  villagers  whose  homes  had  been  deso- 
lated and  whose  fields  had  been  ruined  and 
whose  relatives  had  been  killed,  at  the  order 
of  this  would-be  benefactor,  might  be  a  bit 


122      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

nervous  about  going  to  his  church.  This 
should  not  be,  for  surely  the  doors  of  a  true 
church  should  swing  wide  upon  their  hinges, 
and  no  fear  should  hover  there! 

All  this  the  Doctor  elucidated  honestly  and 
plainly  to  his  host,  there  in  the  dim  light  of 
the  dying  lantern  flame  that  night.  Also  he 
preached  to  him  that  night  of  One  who  had 
said,  in  the  long  ago,  and  was  repeating  it 
to-day  to  guilty  souls:  "Though  your  sins 
be  as  scarlet,  I  will  make  them  white  as  snow : 
though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall 
be  as  wool." 

Very  early  in  the  morning  the  Doctor  and 
his  student,  having  bided  safely  with  the  ban- 
dits for  the  night,  struck  the  trail  down  the 
mountainside  for  home. 

If  you  are  asking  if  the  story  ends  here, 
I  am  telling  you  that  it  does  not — quite — for 
I  have  in  my  treasure  sheaf  from  China  a 
bit  of  pasteboard — a  calling  card  it  is — on 
which  are  three  sets  of  most  imposing  char- 
acters. Upon  the  reverse  side  the  Doctor 
himself,  who  gave  me  this  trophy,  has  writ- 
ten with  his  own  hand,  "  'Mr.  Dang,'  Ku- 


THE  BANDIT  TRAIL  123 

cheng  Bandit,  now  'Col.  Dang/  in  Govern- 
ment Service." 

The  Colonel  had  been  his  recent  visitor. 


THE  BANDIT'S  CALLINO  CA&D 


VIII 
THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 


JHEN  the  stage  is  set  for  this  epi- 
sode, the  telling  of  an  old  tale  by 
an  old  scholar,  there  must  be  in- 
cluded a  glowing  fire  upon  a 
hearth,  around  which  down  in  China's  south 
country  there  gathers  a  shivering  group  of 
foreigners. 

If  I  must  clear  myself  of  inaccuracy  as  to 
"shivering"  in  the  south  country,  I  would 
simply  say  that  down  there  in  the  Happy 
Valley,  after  the  rainy  season  has  thor- 
oughly saturated  the  landscape  for  a  week  or 
two,  folks  do  shiver  over  a  fire,  provided 
they  have  one,  whether  or  not  they  are  sup- 
posed to. 

I  myself  know  of  no  climate  on  earth 
which  absolutely  trues  itself  with  its  hall- 
mark— do  you?     Climate   everywhere   has 
a  chronic  habit  of  being  "unusual."    Once  I 
124 


THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE       125 

actually  saw  it  snow  where  "Afric's  sunny 
fountains,"  according  to  the  hymn-book, 
were  supposed  perpetually  to  play. 

But  to  go  back  to  the  Happy  Valley. 
There  was  a  crackling  fire  on  the  hearth  at 
the  Mission  House,  and  the  smoke  from  the 
aromatic  wood  that  was  burning  rose,  sweet 
like  temple  incense,  save  that  unlike  that  it 
suggested  wholesomeness  and  purity.  What 
matter  that  the  rain  and  wind  battled  about 
the  corners  of  the  house,  pursuing  each  other 
across  the  lawn  from  whence  occasionally  we 
could  hear  the  limbs  of  the  old  camphor  tree 
crack  like  artillery  play  under  their  com- 
bined assault.  If  the  penetrating  chill  had 
crept  inside  and  clammily  trailed  across  walls 
and  floor,  there  was  also  the  cheering  circle 
of  warmth  from  our  fire,  and  we,  a  group  of 
wayfarers,  drawn  to  this  spot  from  devious 
distances,  comforted  ourselves  within  its 
cheery  glow. 

Likewise  there  was  with  us  the  Old 
Scholar.  I  am  not  yet  sure  when  he  entered. 
Certainly,  he  had  not  been  there  while  there 
were  being  exchanged  our  experiences 


126      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

apropos  of  the  junk  shop  expedition  of  the 
afternoon.  Oh,  those  altogether  enticing 
Chinese  junk  shops — my  memory  thrills  to 
them  yet!  Hidden  away  in  queer  crannies, 
around  unlooked-for  corners,  in  mysterious 
alleyways,  all  of  which  somewhere  inter- 
sected the  big  street,  they  yielded  forth  to 
the  eager  searcher  treasures  more  or  less 
ancient  (the  Chinese  gauge  of  value),  always 
fascinating,  as  also  cheap  if  the  persistent 
searcher  can  worst  the  merchant  at  the  di- 
verting little  Chinese  game  of  browbeating. 
Certainly,  the  Old  Scholar  was  not  pres- 
ent while  everybody  in  the  fireside  group 
talked  at  once.  Not  even  we  daring  Occi- 
dentals would  be  sufficiently  blatant  to  frivol 
in  the  presence  of  such  a  perfect  product  of 
China's  age,  dignity,  and  learning.  None  of 
us,  had  we  been  interrogated,  could  have  ac- 
curately told  just  when  the  visitor  out  of  the 
storm  entered  the  room.  Suddenly,  quite 
without  announcement  or  abruptness,  he  was 
there,  standing  well  within  the  door,  gravely 
saluting  us,  while  we,  instinctively  rising, 
were  apprehensively  taking  a  mental  inven- 


THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE       127 

tory  of  our  probable  ability  to  appear  less 
boorish  than  we  felt. 

As  we  surveyed  him  there,  tall  and  im- 
pressive, his  aristocratic  line  accentuated  by 
a  long  black  coat  of  silk,  and  his  finely 
shaped  head  crowned  by  a  satin  cap  with  a 
glistening  knob  of  red,  it  was  like  being  sud- 
denly confronted  by  some  venerable  though 
still  forceful  king  or  potentate,  without  be- 
ing arrayed  in  one's  festive  garments.  We 
foreigners  may  think  ourselves  the  ultimate 
in  matters  of  proper  conventions,  but  how  at 
our  many  blunderings  must  the  Oriental 
laugh  behind  his  facial  mask  of  benignant 
imperturbability ! 

There  was  a  genial  gravity,  if  I  may  so 
speak,  which  clothed  our  visitor.  It  was  as 
though  the  sunshine  of  his  soul  smiled  se- 
renely above  the  long  years  of  his  human 
experience  with  its  various  vicissitudes. 

For  thirty  years  had  the  Old  Scholar  in- 
ducted, with  varying  degrees  of  success,  the 
foreigners  of  the  Concession  into  the  terri- 
fying mazes  of  the  speech  of  his  ancestors. 
No  Oriental  with  his  most  exalted  reverence 


128      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

for  a  teacher  could  ever  surpass  the  admira- 
tion and  veneration  which  was  felt  for  the 
Old  Scholar  by  every  foreigner  who  had 
been  so  favored  of  the  gods  as  to  be  his  pupil. 

For  the  major  part  of  those  thirty  years 
during  which  there  in  the  Happy  Valley  he 
had  listened  to  young  missionaries  in  their 
frantic  attempts  to  "coo  the  tones" — which 
achievement  in  Chinese  seems  to  underlie  all 
possibility  of  success — he  had  stoutly  re- 
fused to  believe  the  Doctrine.  For  all  those 
years  he  had  read  in  his  daily  lessons  with 
them  such  teachings  out  of  the  Chinese 
translation  of  the  New  Testament  as  were 
never  uttered  by  the  sages  who  spoke  in  his 
Classics.  Obdurately  he  withstood  their  un- 
mistakable power,  even  though  with  clinched 
teeth  and  against  his  conviction.  He  was  a 
Chinese  of  the  Chinese.  He  would  admit  no 
Western  God  to  dominate  his  thought,  much 
less  to  sit  upon  the  throne  of  his  heart.  As 
were  his  fathers  before  him  so  would  he  be, 
and  his  mental  conclusion  toward  the  Doc- 
trine was  the  Chinese  equivalent  for  "Finis." 

Then  Kwan-Yin,  his  wife,  a  humble  but 


THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE      129 

loving  follower  of  Jesus  Christ,  had  died. 
Very  truly  had  the  Old  Scholar  loved  her, 
and  withal  it  was  the  light  which  had  shone 
in^he  Vale  of  the  Shadows,  as  she  unafraid 
passed  through,  which  led  him  to  her  God. 
They  tell  me  that  no  one  who  saw  the  Old 
Scholar  move  gravely  down  the  aisle  to  the 
altar  in  church  that  Sabbath  morning,  when 
having  made  his  great  and  final  decision  he 
formally  allied  himself  with  the  people  of 
the  Doctrine,  will  be  likely  ever  to  forget  it. 
When  we  knew  him  it  was  years  after  that, 
and  when  being  thoroughly  established  in 
the  truth,  he  towered  in  kingly  character 
above  the  rank  and  file  of  men  even  as  over 
across  the  Ming,  Kushan,  the  sacred  moun- 
tain, looks  down  at  the  little  hills  at  her  feet. 
But  it  was  not  of  himself  that  the  guest 
at  our  fireside  spoke  that  evening  while  the 
wind  and  rain  reveled  outside  and,  all  po- 
liteness having  been  performed,  we  once 
more  at  our  ease  sat  in  a  circle  about  the 
glowing  fire,  widened  a  bit  now  by  his  se- 
rene presence.  It  was  of  things  Chinese 
that  he  spoke,  much  that  he  told  us  being 


130      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

first-hand  information  in  regard  to  quaint 
and  curious  customs  of  Cathay,  in  response 
to  our  eager  questionings. 

In  all  my  quiver  of  lore  and  legend  culled 
from  time  to  time  in  many  climes  there  is 
not  treasured  any  more  exquisitely  lovely 
than  the  tale  told  that  wonderful  night,  by 
the  Old  Scholar,  of  the  River  Dragon's 
Bride.  As  much  like  he  told  it  to  us  as  it  is 
in  me  here  to  repeat  it,  I  am  faithfully  telling 
it  to  you. 

For  five  thousand  years  the  folklore  and 
fairy  tales  of  China  have  been  written  down 
in  books.  Long  before  that  they  lived  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people.  I  gathered  from  what 
the  narrator  said  indeed  that  to-day,  as  ever, 
once  out  of  school  the  Chinese  pay  no  greater 
attention  to  their  Classics,  provided  they  be 
not  scholars  by  profession,  than  do  Amer- 
icans to  theirs.  Fiction  and  folklore  are 
loved  by  old  and  young  among  these  imag- 
inative and  lovable  folk,  and  probably  far 
more  than  the  entire  bulk  of  their  Classics 
do  these  influence  their  mind. 

When,  therefore,  little  olive-skinned  chil- 


THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE       131 

dren  point  to  a  canoe-like  craft,  long,  slen- 
der, graceful,  carefully  protected  alike  from 
sun  and  rain  in  some  conspicuous  spot  near 
their  community  center — had  not  we  our- 
selves often  seen  such  an  one  in  our  faring 
through  the  river  country? — they  will  be 
told  that  once  upon  the  day  of  the  Dragon 
Festival  this  boat  was  a  winner  in  a  furious 
race  with  boats  of  other  villages.  And  the 
story  I  am  telling  you  as  accounting  for  the 
Dragon  Boat  Races  is  the  same  one  which 
for  a  thousand  years  Chinese  mothers  have 
told  their  children. 

It  was  very  long  ago  when  first  these 
strange  events  were  recorded.  It  was  in 
that  golden  age  of  old  Cathay  when  the  jus- 
tice of  Heaven  seemed  most  actively  em- 
ployed with  the  affairs  of  men,  and  all  the 
Flowery  Kingdom  rejoiced  because  of 
abounding  prosperity. 

But  there  came  one  dark  day  when  the 
beloved  Emperor,  he  who  sat  in  the  Purple 
Palace,  ruled  in  righteousness  and  dispensed 
with  equity  and  justice  the  affairs  of  state, 
laid  aside  his  scepter  adorned  with  jade  and 


132      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

virgin  gold,  and  mounted  up  to  become  a 
guest  of  the  Dragon  on  High. 

There  then  arose  in  the  land  an  Emperor 
who  was  utterly  selfish  at  heart.  Misrule 
and  wicked  craftiness  and  great  cruelty  char- 
acterized his  reign,  and  the  people,  bowed 
under  oppression,  mourned  because  of  the 
evil  days  which  had  fallen  upon  them.  The 
gods  themselves  turned  deaf  ears  toward 
them,  though  they  crowded  the  temples  and 
cast  before  the  altars  their  most  precious 
possessions.  The  smoke  of  costly  incense, 
freighted  with  the  pitiful  petitions  of  the 
people,  rolled  upward  from  every  shrine  in 
the  land.  To  crown  their  sorrows  there  came 
down  upon  the  stricken  country,  already  re- 
duced to  direst  penury  by  the  failure  of  crops 
and  the  levy  of  heavy  taxes,  a  famine  so  sore 
that  no  record  of  such  an  one  had  ever  been 
written  down  in  all  the  annals  of  the  Middle 
Kingdom. 

On  such  a  day  of  human  misery  and  stress 
certain  evil  priests,  acting  willingly  under 
the  direction  of  the  unrighteous  king,  who 
saw  here  a  fine  chance  to  benefit  materially 


THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE      133 

in  purse  out  of  human  suffering — ancient 
ancestor  that  he  was  of  the  modern  profiteer 
— proclaimed  an  oracle  from  the  gods.  It 
had  been  divinely  revealed,  so  they  blatantly 
affirmed,  that  only  would  prosperity  and  hap- 
piness again  descend  upon  the  stricken  king- 
dom were  an  offering,  inconceivably  great 
and  precious,  made  to  the  terrible  Dragon 
God  whose  habitation  was  in  the  slimy  depths 
of  the  river.  No  wonder  that  the  frenzied 
people,  rising  from  their  hunger  and  disease, 
clamored  loudly  that  no  gift  which  could 
lift  them  out  of  their  distress  could  be  too 
valuable,  no  offering  too  costly. 

When  later  they  learned  from  the  lips 
of  the  perfidious  priests  that  the  only 
oblation  acceptable  to  the  angry  Dragon  of 
the  River  would  be  the  loveliest  maid  in  all 
the  realm,  arrayed  in  bridal  grandeur  and 
bedecked  writh  jewels  worthy  of  a  king's  ran- 
som, they  could  scarce  believe  their  ears. 
And  when,  moreover,  they  knew  that  upon 
a  certain  day  to  be  proclaimed  the  luckless 
lady  was  to  be  conveyed  in  her  nuptial  chair 
of  red  to  the  water's  edge,  from  thence  in 


134      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

a  flower-festooned  barge  to  be  rowed  by  si- 
lent oarsmen  to  her  doom  in  midstream,  there 
was  mourning  over  all  the  land. 

But  to  the  credulous  populace  all  this  was 
believed  to  be  the  will  of  the  gods.  They  had 
suffered  much.  Evidently,  the  wrath  of  the 
gods  could  be  appeased  only  by  some  such 
costly  sacrifice. 

The  thing  was  done,  and  later  upon  a 
lonely  beach  the  body  of  the  ill-fated  Bride 
of  Death,  stripped  of  its  jewels  by  agents  of 
the  diabolical  priests,  floated  down  the  river's 
current  to  be  lost  to  sight  forever  in  the  sea. 
Strange  to  relate,  the  plagues  which  devas- 
tated the  land  were  stayed,  and  it  was  small 
wonder  that  thereafter  for  hundreds  of  years, 
upon  the  annual  recurrence  of  that  day,  to 
provide  against  the  future  fury  of  the  venge- 
ful River  Dragon,  a  similar  tragic  sacrifice 
was  made. 

One  day  after  a  long  time,  there  ascended 
the  imperial  throne,  by  the  road  of  the  con- 
queror, a  most  upright  young  emperor  who 
was  set  to  exalt  all  good  and  put  down  evil. 
Immediately  discerning  the  hideous  fraud 


THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE       135 

which  for  so  long  had  been  perpetrated  upon 
the  unsuspecting  people  by  the  evil  descend- 
ants of  those  priests  of  former  days,  he  re- 
solved for  once  and  all  to  put  an  end  to  it. 

For  the  first  time  during  his  reign  the  day 
approached,  the  fifth  day  of  the  fifth  moon, 
when  once  more  there  was  to  be  chosen  the 
hapless  victim  who  was  doomed  to  be  offered 
to  the  River  Dragon. 

The  choice,  made  by  a  self-appointed  com- 
mission of  twro  priests  and  a  conscienceless 
priestess,  fell  upon  the  idolized  and  only 
daughter  of  a  high  official  family.  Beauti- 
ful beyond  all  words  was  the  chosen  maid. 
All  the  terms  applied  by  ancient  poets  to  the 
ravishing  beauty  of  court  favorites  might 
have  been  employed  in  describing  her.  Had 
one  inch  been  added  to  her  height  she  had 
been  too  tall.  Her  stature  diminished  by  a 
hair's  breadth  would  have  made  her  too 
short.  One  more  fleck  of  powder  had  ren- 
dered her  too  pale,  while  another  touch  of 
rouge  would  have  ruined  her  color.  Like 
the  plumage  of  the  jewel  bird  were  her  ador- 
able eyebrows  and  her  skin  was  as  satin.  Her 


136      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

waist  was  like  a  roll  of  new  silk  and  her 
teeth  like  small  white  shells.  Her  many 
suitors,  lured  from  afar  by  rumors  of  her 
loveliness,  covered  their  faces,  even  when 
they  glimpsed  her  from  a  distance,  unable 
to  bear  the  splendor  of  her  charms.  It  was 
such  an  one  as  this  princess  over  whose  luck- 
less head  the  muddy  waters  of  the  river  were 
soon  to  close,  to  satisfy,  not  an  angry  river 
deity,  but  rather  the  insatiable  greed  of  the 
evil  priests. 

The  family  of  the  princess  was  mad  with 
grief.  The  only  son,  her  brother,  clad  in 
coarse  sackcloth,  visited  the  temple  and  upon 
his  knees  before  the  idols  vowed  to  perform 
the  extreme  rite  of  consuming  his  own  cooked 
flesh;  he  would  renounce  his  inheritance  as 
the  only  son  of  his  father,  and  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  beg,  a  mendicant,  from  place  to  place, 
could  only  the  awful  edict  which  pronounced 
his  adored  sister's  doom  be  revoked.  The 
whole  city  was  plunged  into  mourning  but 
it  was  all  to  no  avail.  The  decision  of  the 
gods,  as  revealed  to  the  Commission  of 
Three,  must  stand. 


THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE       137 

Preparations  for  the  bridal  of  death  were 
set  in  motion.  Almost  all  the  city  was  bid- 
den to  the  feast,  which,  according  to  custom, 
must  be  given  by  the  father  of  the  bride  be- 
fore she  should  start  in  her  marriage  chair 
upon  the  fateful  journey  from  which  she 
would  never  return. 

Now  there  was  one  in  the  capital  city  who 
was  not  bidden  to  the  feast,  and  strange  to 
say,  this  was  the  young  Emperor  who  had 
but  within  recent  moons  taken  his  seat  upon 
the  Dragon  Throne.  Whether  or  not  this 
omission  was  an  oversight,  or  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  priests,  it  was  not  necessary  to 
fathom,  since  in  China,  then  as  now,  the 
sending  of  a  gift  to  the  bride,  whether  or  not 
a  gorgeous  scarlet  invitation  has  been  re- 
ceived, would  insure  to  the  donor  thereof  a 
warm  welcome  to  the  wedding. 

Therefore  on  the  day  appointed  for  the 
strange  bridal,  there  emerged  from  the  Pur- 
ple Palace  a  train  of  servants  bearing  upon 
salvers  of  finest  lacquer  a  gift  of  such  sump- 
tuousness  as  none  but  royalty  could  devise, 
and  whose  glistening  grandeur  was  unbe- 


138      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

lievable.  There  were  gorgeous  flowers 
whose  petals  were  of  coral  and  jade,  every 
one  of  which  trembled  like  those  of  a  real 
blossom.  There  were  butterflies  of  greenest 
jade  and  bracelets  frosted  with  pearls. 
There  were  garlands  of  plum  blossoms 
wrought  of  milk-white  pearls,  and  chains  of 
gold,  and  rolls  of  rarest  silk,  and  embroid- 
ered garments.  All  of  these  gifts  were  sent 
by  the  Emperor  to  the  house  of  the  bride's 
father,  and  shortly  after  their  arrival  came 
the  monarch  himself.  The  multitude  of 
guests  already  gathered  made  way  for  him 
as  straight  and  strong  and  regal,  yet  kindly 
of  face  and  benignant  of  mien,  he  strode  to 
the  seat  of  honor  which  had  hastily  been  pre- 
pared for  him.  He  looked  every  whit  what 
his  ancient  title  designated  him — the  Son  of 
Heaven. 

The  wretched  little  bride,  all  clad  in  her 
bridal  finery  heavy  with  jewels,  and  trem- 
bling with  the  great  fear  which  was  upon 
her,  was  presently  led  from  her  own  apart- 
ment, in  which  during  the  feast  she  had  sat 
aside  weeping.  She  was  about  to  be  placed 


THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE       139 

in  the  red  chair,  when  her  attendants  were 
halted  by  the  voice  of  the  Emperor. 

"I  do  not  yet  see  the  bridegroom,"  he 
said,  speaking  clearly  amidst  the  great  si- 
lence which  now  covered  the  throng  of  wed- 
ding guests.  "Surely,"  he  went  on,  "the 
bride  will  not  leave  her  father's  roof  until 
her  happy  husband  comes  to  claim  her.  Has 
he  not  yet  come?" 

A  great  hope  began  to  stir  in  the  hearts 
of  the  people  as  the  words  of  their  young  Em- 
peror fell  upon  their  ears,  while  the  bride's 
family,  prostrated  in  sorrow,  scarce  dared 
believe  they  heard  aright. 

"Has  the  bridegroom  not  yet  come?" 
again  asked  the  royal  questioner. 

And  all  the  people  murmured,  "No  one 
has  come." 

"Then,"  resumed  he,  "we  must  know  why 
he  tarries  so  late.  I  will  send  at  once  to  his 
palace  which  you  say  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
river,  a  messenger  who  will  announce  to  him 
that  his  lovely  bride  awaits  him  here." 

The  head  priest  of  the  evil  trio,  who  were 
now  on  the  swift  road  to  their  complete  un- 


140      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

doing,  was  the  first  runner  to  be  dispatched. 
Willing  hands  provided  him  prompt  conduct 
to  the  barge,  which,  gay  with  its  flowers,  lay 
waiting  at  the  water's  edge  for  the  poor  lit- 
tle bride.  Without  a  further  word,  the  priest 
upon  whom  grim  retribution  had  so  suddenly 
fallen  was  rowed  to  midstream,  there  to  take 
the  path  to  the  palace  of  the  River  Dragon 
which  he  himself  had  designed  for  the  lily 
feet  of  a  lovely  maid. 

At  the  house  of  the  bride's  father  the  wed- 
ding guests  lingered,  the  bride  herself  sitting 
once  more  apart,  but  with  the  birds  singing 
in  the  topmost  branches  of  her  heart.  Lis- 
tening through  her  silken  curtains  she  again 
heard  that  now  beloved  voice  once  more 
addressing  the  guests : 

"Has  the  bridegroom  sent  back  my  mes- 
senger to  say  when  he  will  come,  or  the 
reason  for  his  strange  delay?  The  hour 
grows  late.  This  is  a  most  dishonorable  do- 
ing, that  so  beautiful  a  bride  should  be  thus 
deserted  at  her  wedding  chair.  Has  my 
messenger  returned?" 

And  all  the  people,  upon  whose  cloud  of 


THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE       141 

sorrow  a  great  light  was  bursting,  now 
shouted  back  to  him,  "No  one  has  returned !" 

Then  the  second  priest  was  named  as  mes- 
senger to  the  delinquent  bridegroom,  and 
upon  his  failure  to  return  the  wicked  old 
priestess  wras  sent  the  way  of  her  confeder- 
ates in  crime. 

Just  as  the  red  ball  of  the  sun  dropped 
down  behind  the  mountains,  and  while  the 
happy  guests  could  scarce  repress  their  joy 
until  their  splendid  young  ruler  should  finally 
speak,  he  slowly  rose  in  his  place  and  said, 
"The  sun  has  set  and  though  we  have  waited 
for  him  many  hours,  the  much  feared  River 
Dragon,  who  for  ten  thousand  moons  has  af- 
flicted the  homes  and  hearts  of  my  people, 
has  not  come  to  take  his  fair  young  bride. 
I  have  given  him  ample  time  to  make  good 
his  ancient  claim  and  he  has  failed.  This 
winsome  bride  is  not  for  him,  and  nevermore 
shall  he  curse  my  people  or  my  country." 

And  all  the  people  shouted  with  a  great 
and  joyous  shout,  "Death  to  the  River 
Dragon !  Long  live  our  king !" 

And  he  did  live  long,  and  with  him,  the 


142      THE  RIVER  DRAGON'S  BRIDE 

sole  Queen  of  his  heart  and  kingdom, 
reigned  the  lovely  Princess  who  would,  but 
for  him,  have  become  the  River  Dragon's 
Bride. 

In  memory  of  that  great  deliverance,  to 
this  very  time,  upon  the  fifth  day  of  the  fifth 
moon  there  are  rowed  upon  the  rivers  of 
China  the  Dragon-Boat  races,  in  all  the  bril- 
liance of  their  decoration,  and  whose  sole 
guerdon  for  victory  is  a  garland  of  flowers. 


O  China!  Are  you  yourself  the  Pretty 
Princess  whom  to-day  your  enemies,  after 
stripping  you  of  your  jewels,  both  national 
and  material,  would  consign  to  your  doom 
beneath  the  murky  waters  of  the  River  of 
Oblivion  ? 

Hold  fast  to  your  courage,  Pretty  Prin- 
cess. Your  own  dauntless  Deliverer  shall 
yet  come,  and  you  too  shall  live  happily  ever 
after. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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